Internal Despondency
by Cyclothymic
Summary: Sawyer has been in solitary for 4 years. She loses her voice, her softness, her hope. When she gets to the ground, she needs to learn survival techniques: like how to be around others. How to show affection again, of all sorts. How to be a normal person again. Bellamy/OC. Canon compliant to a certain extent.
1. The One with the Beginning

Sawyer was only 14, with pale skin and long dark brown hair. Her green eyes were sparkling, and although she was short, her personality was large. She hadn't grown since she was 8, plateauing at an even 5 foot. She got her height from her mother, since her mother had never grown taller than 5 feet, even though her father was upwards of 6 feet. They were very much in love, even if they only lived in Factory. Neither of their jobs paid much, but they made do, as the rest of Factory did, and they love their daughter very much. At least, they did.

They probably didn't love the Sawyer that was found standing in a pool of guardsman's blood the day after her birthday, on September 27th. Sawyer was immediately arrested, and would've been promptly floated if the public hadn't gotten wind that a 14 year old had been arrested. The counsel couldn't float her without public outcry of injustice, since every other juvenile was sent to prison until they were 18 to decide whether or not they were pardoned. But they did give her a trial straight away.

Sawyer distinctly remembers standing in the council chambers in Alpha. It was the first time that she'd ever been in Alpha, and she would've stopped to gawk if the guards hadn't been dragging her - quite literally, there was a chain attached to her handcuffs and they were walking faster than she could hope to - with the hopes of not being seen. Being reviewed also wasn't supposed to happen until they were 18, but Sawyer was deemed an "extenuating circumstance". She stood in the council chambers, scared out of her mind, but also oddly at peace. It was only hours after killing the guards, and she supposed that most other children would've been terrified if they were standing in the chambers, waiting to be sentenced to death. But Sawyer was at peace.

Her mother and father were standing in the corner, standing hard and straight, but there were remnants of tears on both of their faces. Their expressions made their opinions very clear; they hated this Sawyer. They were crying because _their_ Sawyer was already dead, and they were grieving over her. The peppy girl who skipped down the hallways and loved life with the naivety of any other girl her age. The girl who, every day when they came home, would kiss them on the cheek and asked how their days were, even if the answers were the same every single day. She made sure that she told them that she loved them every single night. _Their_ Sawyer wouldn't have done this. _Their_ Sawyer wouldn't have killed anybody, much less four guardsmen with no reason. _This_ Sawyer killed _their_ Sawyer. The blood still on her face likely wasn't helping the situation.

"Sawyer Mason, I must say that I am surprised to see you standing here. A small, innocent girl from the Factory Station standing before me, awaiting for me to decide her fate after the murders of four innocent guardsmen. Only 14, with so much hope left in your life, so much left to do in your life, in just your youth," Chancellor Jaha shook his head. His hands were crossed on the table in the way that he always had them in, which Sawyer found very condescending, and would've scowled if her face hadn't been frozen. "It is custom for me to ask you if you would like to say anything on your own behalf." Every council member now looked at her with intense hatred in their eyes, or disappointment, or shock. Or a mixture of those expressions. The room was silent for a minute, with all eyes on Sawyer.

Sawyer said nothing. The blood was on her hands, and she knew that nothing, even the truth, would make them pardon her. She was going to die, to repay the lives that she had taken. The blood was literally on her hands - and her face, and arms. Some had seeped through her cheap Factory shoes into her socks. They hadn't let her wash before coming, just had her put the prison clothes over her normal clothes so that she wouldn't attract more attention than usual with the blood splatter all over her clothing. Sawyer vaguely wondered if her parents were the ones to clean up the blood of the guardsmen.

"No? Well, I think that brings us to the time to vote. All in favor of the termination of Sawyer Mason's life 4 years from now, on September 26th." Chancellor Jaha turned to face the council. Every hand immediately shot into the air. "Sawyer Mason, your fate has been decided. You will be executed in 4 years, and until then, you will spend your time in juvenile lockup."

"In solitary," one of the councilmembers spoke up once Chancellor Jaha was done speaking. Some looked at him in shock.

"Council Member Kane, you're proposing that we put a 14 year old girl in solitary for 4 years-"

"I know what I am proposing, Council Member Griffin. I am not proposing that we put a 14 year old girl in solitary, but that we lock up the perpetrator of a quadruple homicide with no remorse for her actions in order to keep the rest of the prisoners safe." The rest of the council looked persuaded by what Kane was saying, and only the woman, Council Member Griffin, showed the bit of disdain for his proposal.

"A 14 year old girl in solitary for 4 years? Clarke is that age, Wells is that age, Carina, is that age. Could you imagine placing your child in solitary for 4 years?" Griffin told him, and he looked annoyed.

"Our children are not murderers. My daughter is not a killer."

 _I won't kill the other prisoners, because they don't deserve to die,_ Sawyer thought to herself, watching the exchange with a blank expression. The council kept glancing back at her, as though if they did not make sure she was still there, she would break free. Sawyer couldn't break free even if she wanted to, and besides, the guards next to her made her not want to give them any excuse to touch her. The uniforms made her cringe.

"All in favor of placing Sawyer Mason in solitary during her 4 years in juvenile lockup." every council member except for Council Member Griffin rose their hands immediately, and after a minute, so did she. It was all in favor, and it was then that Sawyer realized that she would spend the rest of her life alone, with only guards to keep her company, until she died.

Frankly, if she had the option, she would've chosen to be floated right then.


	2. The One with the New Beginning

"Prisoner 005, stand up." The guards entered her room and Sawyer immediately stood up and complied with their demands, turning around to face the wall. She saw the needle, and her heart rate picked up. There was only one reason why they would enter with a needle. It was only the 23rd: it wasn't time yet. She knew she had 3 more days, and even though she knew that she was going to die anyways, she didn't want those 3 days taken away from her. She flinched away when one of them touched her wrist with their hand instead of the cuffs, causing them to grip it tighter. She felt her breath catch in her throat and her heart started racing at the skin contact. She felt a prick on her upper arm, then multiple pricks on her wrist, and everything faded.

People. That was the first thing that Sawyer noticed. People were talking, loudly, cheering even. Some were groaning, likely just waking up as she was. Sawyer hadn't been around a person other than guards and doctors in 4 years. She tried to move, but felt restricted. Looking down, she saw the bright red seatbelt holding her in. Feeling the rougher material on her skin, she noticed that she was wearing completely different clothes, rougher than the prison uniforms that she'd become accustomed to, and she tried not to gag. Wondering who changed her, she came to the conclusion that it was likely a guard. Bile rose into her throat, and she had to take deep breaths to stop herself from vomiting on the floor. The idea of a guard seeing her naked made her nauseated.

"Hey kid, you alright?" someone asked her, and she looked at the man sitting next to her. He looked a bit younger than she was. She vaguely recognized his face, she couldn't recall from where, but other than that, she had no idea who he was. Nobody knew her, and she didn't know anybody. It was the consequence of spending 4 years in solitary confinement. She didn't have much of a problem with it in the end; she knew that she was going to die the day that she turned 18. It was a miracle that they let her live that long in the first place. Remembering that the man asked her a question, she just nodded in response. He was already distracted by the jolting of the ship - she'd figured out that much, that she was on a ship - and she felt relieved that he wasn't going to ask her any more questions. She heard someone from the top deck say something about it being the atmosphere, and the screen lit up with Chancellor Jaha's face.

"Prisoners of the Ark, hear me now. You've been given a second change, and as your Chancellor, it is my hope that you see this not as just a chance for you, but a chance for all of us, indeed for mankind itself. We have no idea what is waiting for you down there. If the odds of survival were better, we would've sent others. Frankly, we're sending you because your crimes have made you expendable."

"Your dad is a dick, Wells!" someone yelled, and Sawyer couldn't help but agree. She knew that she was expendable to them, they made that clear a long time ago. But not all of the people on this ship had committed the crimes that she had.

"Those crimes will be forgiven, your records wiped clean," Jaha continued, and Sawyer scoffed. The man next to her looked at her curiously, and she ignored the look that he gave her. She knew that they wouldn't forgive her crimes, it was a simple fact of life. "The drop site has been chosen carefully. Before the last war, Mount Weather was a military base build within a mountain. It was to be stocked with enough non-perishables to sustain 300 for up to two years." Sawyer heard commotion above her, in one of the upper levels, and it sounded like a female was irritated.

"Mount weather is life. You must locate those supplies immediately. Your one responsibility is: stay alive."

"He wants us to live when he was ready to float all of us?" one of the prisoners on Sawyer's deck incredulously. She agreed with him, and so did mostly everyone else. He had just said that they're expendable and they don't care if the juveniles die, but that they should stay alive? Fuck that, she thought. The entire ship jerked, and the heard thuds as people hit the floor above her. The lights began flickering.

"Looks like they're gonna float us after all," one of the girls said, and there were mutterings of agreement. Someone screamed. Then, the lights came back on, and there was a large thud as they hit the ground. Buckles began clicking like mad, and Sawyer tried to get hers off, but not using her motor skills for years was impeding on her.

"Here, let me help you with your seatbelt," the man that was next to her tried to help her, and she jolted the second that he tried to touch her.

"Chill, I was trying to help you." he rolled his eyes and left her alone. After struggling for a minute she unhooked herself and stood on her seat, trying to see what was going on. A guard was standing at the door, and Sawyer immediately jumped down. Why was there a guard on the ship? She heard something about it being only delinquents, and felt defensive that they put a guard on the ship with them. She ran her hands through her hair and proceeded to hit herself in the face with a thick metal bracelet. Tugging on it, it pulled at her skin harshly, and she realized that it was the pricks that she felt after the guards injected her.

Sawyer was suddenly overcome with the strong feeling that her wrist was tainted. She tugged on it more, feeling it pulling harshly at her skin, but she didn't care. She just wanted to get it off. Suddenly, everybody was running off of the ship and she ran along with them, feeling the blood welling up underneath the metal bracelet. A group congregated around the opening of the dropship, likely an argument. Sawyer stood on her seat once more, putting some space between her and the group.

"That's Octavia Blake, the girl they found hidden in the floor!" a guy near her yelled, and a brown haired girl tried to launch herself into the crowd, restrained by the guard.

"Octavia, Octavia, no. Let's give them something else to remember you by."

"Yeah? Like what?" she looked extremely doubtful, and the guard smirked. He grabbed the lever next to him.

"Like being the first person on the ground in a hundred years." Well, that's dramatic, Sawyer thought to herself. He pulled the lever, and Octavia, apparently, stepped out cautiously, until she yelled.

"We're back, bitches!" there was almost a stampede as people flooded out of the ship, Sawyer jumped down when the group was out, stepping to the side as soon as she got outside, both mesmerized and terrified. She brushed her hand along the grass - she remembered that much - and was distracted by the feel of it on her skin. Sawyer decided right then that she would do whatever it took to stay alive down here. She was sick of waiting for the day she was going to die; she was going to live, instead.

"We're on the ground. That not good enough for you?" the guard asked the son of the Chancellor.

"We need to find Mount Weather. You heard my father's message, that has to be our first priority," the man was walking towards the guard, looking around at each of the delinquents. It was clear that he'd learned how to speak to groups from his father, and their speech patterns were almost identical. Frankly, that was pissing Sawyer off quickly. She was on the ground, on Earth. She didn't need Jaha to follow her here, and she didn't need to follow Jaha.

"Screw your father," Octavia spoke, looking defiantly at the young Jaha. Sawyer noticed that she looked like she belonged here, on Earth. In fact, most of them did. The only ones that didn't were the Jaha and the blonde girl. Like they belonged on the Ark. Sawyer realized that it was probably because they came from Alpha, and the rest looked like they had seen hard times. The rest of them had seen and lived through tough times, they hadn't. They didn't know what it was like. "What, you think you're in charge here, you and your little Princess?" she spoke condescendingly, but Sawyer agreed with her.

"Do you think we care who's in charge? We need to get to Mount Weather. Not because the Chancellor said so, but because the longer we wait, the hungrier we'll get and the harder this'll be. How long do you think we'll last without those supplies? We're looking at a 20-mile trek, okay? So if we want to get there before dark, we need to leave. Now." the blonde girl from Alpha looked angry at the world. Probably because she knows she isn't going to sleep in her cozy bed. She underestimates all of us. Not all of us had our lives handed to us on a silver platter.

"I got a better idea," the guard said. "You two go, find it for us. Let the privileged do the hard work for a change." There were cheers of agreement, and Sawyer agreed with them wholeheartedly. She watched her mother and father slave for the privileged, cleaning up after them, literally. It was what she was destined to do. They needed to do something, feel what it was like to have to work for things.

"You're not listening. We all need to go." Jaha was shoved out of the way by another man, this time with brown slicked back hair and pale skin.

"Look at this, everybody. The Chancellor of Earth." he was met with chuckles throughout the crowd. The guard was standing close with the brown haired woman that had stood up to Jaha and the blonde girl. Sawyer noticed that they looked vaguely similar. If she didn't know any better, she'd say that they were siblings, which would have explained why he'd restrained her earlier. But that was impossible on the Ark.

"You think that's funny?" Jaha asked, and the scrawny brown haired man pushed him harshly.

"Wells!" the blonde girl exclaimed, and she was held back by one of the guys - Sawyer took a harsh breath in once she saw his face. No. She'd seen almost exactly that face in her nightmares every night for the past 4 years. And it followed her to the place she was supposed to be free from her past.

"No, but that was." the brown haired man was speaking again. Wells got up, limping slightly, holding up his fists. "All right."

The other man faked a rush, laughing at Wells' reaction to it. "Come on, come on," he egged him on. Before anything could happen, another man jumped in between the two of them, to the groans of the other campers.

"Kid's got one leg. How about you wait until it's a fair fight?"

"Hey Spacewalker," Octavia walked up flirtatiously. "Rescue me next." the blonde girl looked irritated. Maybe they dated? Sawyer wondered, and the group dispersed. Her wrist started itching from the blood drying on it, and Sawyer stared at her wristband once more.

"Hey, were you trying to take this off?" the blonde girl asked the Spacewalker. So she wasn't the only one who wanted the thing off.

"Yeah, so?"

"So this wristband transmits your vital signs to the Ark. Take it off, and they'll think you're dead." the blonde girl was pissed.

"Should I care?" Spacewalker had a point. Why should she be helping them? They'd done nothing for her, only keep her locked inside of a damn box for 4 years. She didn't need to help them, Sawyer was done helping them, and she sure wouldn't listen to some random blonde chick telling her she can't take hers off. She walked away from the group, not wanting to hear anything else. She found a rock, and began banging it on her wrist, feeling the pain of the needles stabbing her deeper in the wrist. Growling in frustration, she threw the rock away.

"Hey, kid, need some help?" it was the same person from earlier, the man with the dark skin and short hair. He had strong features, and looked authoritative, and Sawyer couldn't place his face still. Sawyer debated for a second, and nodded. The man pulled a pocket knife out of his boot, a real one, and tried to slide it underneath her bracelet, as Sawyer was gritting her teeth to prevent from crying out from the pain. Once he got his knife between the bracelet and her skin, he popped it off, but not without a large amount of pain and blood. With her wrist bleeding, she put pressure on it to try to stop it, but felt relief that the bracelet was gone.

"Nathan Miller, call me Miller," he stuck his hand out for her to shake, and when she didn't, he withdrew it and shrugged. "Fine."

"Sawyer," she said quietly, nodding at him. He nodded back and stood, holding out his hand to pull her up, the other holding her bracelet. Ignoring it, she got up by herself. He shrugged and immediately tried to sling his arm over her shoulder, but she stepped away from him. She hadn't been touched in 4 years by anyone except for the guards and the surgeons.

"No physical contact. Gotcha." he directed her over to the group that he used to be with, throwing the bracelet on the ground when he did so.

"So, Bellamy, we can remove these things," Miller said proudly, making the guard turn around. He laid eyes on her and she flinched at the harshness in his eyes, backing away slightly from the group. Bellamy kept his eyes on her.

"What's wrong with her?" he asked Miller, and he shrugged.

"No idea. She's weird. Doesn't like being touched, and apparently is scared of you," Miller grinned and looked at Sawyer, who was glaring at him. If he is a guard, we should all be afraid.

"This is good," Bellamy confirmed to Miller, and he looked proud to have his approval. Sawyer backed out of the group, walking towards the edge of the clearing,

Sawyer ran her hands over her face and crouched, looking at everybody mulling around. She recognized absolutely none of them. It were times like these when she realized how much isolation is actually torture. She could hardly stand people around her, people that didn't hate her. The guards treated her terribly, thought of her as less than human. And she deserved it, in their eyes. Miller was the first person who tried to communicate with her as anything other than harshly in years. Having time to herself, she ran her hand over her stomach absentmindedly, remembering how she got the scar.

It was June 26th, 3 months before she was sentenced to die, that she finally had a different kind of interaction with the guards than the ones that she had become accustomed to. The guards burst into her room followed by a doctor in a long white coat, and they came at her, without talking, with a large syringe of an orange liquid. She backed away but they quickly cornered her in the small cell of hers, injecting the liquid into her arm. As her vision faded away, she caught the eyes of the doctor, whom she realized was a woman. The Council Member originally against her solitary confinement.

Sawyer woke up several hours later in an immense amount of pain. The center of her body was in a great amount of pain. It felt like someone had stabbed her, and she attempted to move, the pain making her cry out.

"You're awake," the nurse next to her said in a dull voice. She looked at him, and he was sitting at least 10 feet away from her, looking at her with a small amount of curiosity in his eyes. She noticed that there were 3 guards standing in her room, and she was handcuffed to the bars of the hospital bed.

"What-" she tried to talk, but it came out as a croak, her throat dry and her voice severely underused. The nurse went to get her water, but one of the guards held their hand up.

"No speaking, prisoner, and no physical contact," one of them stated, and the nurse rolled his eyes, ignoring the guard and getting her ice chips anyway. He stood there next to her and fed her ice chips. Sawyer hated feeling so hopeless, but assumed that it was better than nothing. His blue eyes were looking at her analytically, his blonde hair falling slightly into his eyes. Sawyer supposed that he was cute, but didn't have time to dwell on it as more pain shot through her body, causing her to groan.

"We reached the maximum amount of opiates during your surgery, so we can't give you any more. Sorry," he looked at her with pity in his eyes.

"Good, she deserves to be in pain," one of the guards grunted, and the nurse's eyes flashed to him.

"If you're going to disrupt my patient, you can leave," he offered, and the guard rolled his eyes and stayed put, without saying anything more.

"Surgery?" Sawyer's voice came across as a whisper, but she supposed that it was better than nothing.

"Yes. We performed an appendectomy along with a tubal ligation. I guess they're planning on pardoning you!" he spoke the last part attempting to instill her with hope, and she shook her head. "They're not?" she shook her head once more, and stared at him until he started talking once more.

"An appendectomy just takes out your appendix so that we don't have to do it later. It's cheaper to do it when you're below 18, which is probably why we did it now. A tubal ligation is when the fallopian tubes are severed and sealed, making it impossible for the egg to implant itself in the uterus. It's used for women who have already had a child, and juveniles who are pardoned that performed the more unsavory acts. Even though the crimes are forgiven, we don't want them reproducing." Sawyer thought that the nurse looked too damn happy for telling her that she would never be able to reproduce. She supposed that it wouldn't matter because she was going to die in 3 months anyway, but if she was going to die, why were they doing these to her? Why utilize resources?

Realizing that it was too much thinking for her currently, Sawyer fell back asleep, expending enough energy for the day.

Now, Sawyer realized why they'd sterilized her. Because she was going to be down here, and they didn't want her reproducing, even if they colonize the Earth once more. She looked around and thought about how many others had been sterilized, and realized probably not many. This was almost the Ark's last "fuck you" to her. She had to admit that it was a good one.


	3. The One with the Bracelets

The bleeding had barely stopped on Sawyer's wrist by the time another fight had begun to bud. It was between the same people, Wells and the scrawny man she still hadn't learned the name of. She'd seen him talking with Miller and Bellamy, and the man from before, the one she couldn't stand to look at, followed him around like a puppy.

"You know, my father, he begged for mercy in the airlock chamber when your father floated him." Sawyer wanted to roll her eyes. She didn't know what he'd done to get arrested - hell, she didn't know what anyone had done to get down here - but showing that he cared and acted on emotions, around a bunch of criminals, wasn't the best plan of action. Wells contemplated for a minute, before walking away and shoulder checking him.

"You spelled 'die' wrong, geniuses," he said while walking away. It was a weak comeback, but she supposed that there was nothing that he could say. Nothing he said could bring that kid's father back.

"If you're gonna kill someone, it's probably best not to announce it," Bellamy walked up and told them, looking at them with mild disapproval. The emotional kid laughed.

"You're not really a member of the guard, are you?"

"No. The real guard will be here soon, unless we stop it. You don't actually think they're gonna forgive your crimes," the 'guard' scoffed. "Even if they do, then what? Guys like us, we're gonna become model citizens now, get jobs, if we're lucky, maybe pick up their trash?" Most of the anxiety that Sawyer felt around him was alleviated mostly upon hearing that he wasn't a real member of the guard, and she strongly agreed with him. She knew they weren't going to forgive her.

"You got a point?" the man she recognized spoke and she flinched. _Their voices are even the same._ That voice was one of them that haunted her, floating around in her head constantly.

"No. I got a question. They locked you up, dumped you down here like lab rats to die. So why are you helping them?"

"The hell we are."

"You're wearing those bracelets, aren't you?" Sawyer rubbed her wrist at Bellamy's words. "Right now, those things are telling them whether or not it's safe to follow us down."

"Okay, you said we could stop it. How?" the scrawny brown haired man was speaking again, obviously convinced by his words. Sawyer wasn't surprised. If she hadn't already agreed with him, she would've.

"Take them off. The Ark will think you're dead, that it's not safe to follow. You follow?"

"Right." he nodded. "And if we do, I mean, what's in it for us?" _Is he an idiot?_ Sawyer wondered. What more could be in it other than the Ark not following them down? True freedom wasn't enough?

"Someone has got to help me run things." he smirked at them and then walked away. The two immediately started scrambling to take off the bracelets.

"Eavesdropping?" Miller appeared by her and she jumped, turning to face him. "Don't worry, I was too. Murphy and Mbege. Not the two I'd pick to help me run things, but as long as I'm second in command and run them, I don't really care. Murphy is the one with the greasy hair, that looks like he wants to torture everyone. Mbege looks like he's going to kill everyone."

"Is there a difference?" Miller laughed at her and Sawyer almost flinched at the sound of her voice croaking from underuse. She cleared her throat, and realized that she would likely have to start talking if she wanted to start surviving with these people.

"Of course there is, kid. Here, snagged you a knife," Miller flipped the knife he was holding around so he was holding the handle out to her and she took it quickly, feeling the weight of a knife for the first time in years. "You've ever used one of these?"

"Once," she said quietly, and Miller rose his eyebrows, shrugging when she didn't elaborate. She tossed the knife a bit, gaining a feel for it. He started walking, gesturing for her to follow him. She struggled a bit to keep in step with him.

"Didn't exercise much, or just too short?" Miller laughed at her. "Hey, how come I don't recognize you?" Sawyer rose her eyebrow at him.

"Why do you think?" He stared at her contemplatively.

"Solitary? Damn kid. What did you do to get locked up?" Miller asked, causing Sawyer to just shrug. Milled looked at her as though he was trying to figure her out, stopping for a minute.

"I'll figure it out eventually." He started walking again after a minute, and Sawyer eventually realized that he was leading her towards Bellamy and his expanded group, now including Murphy and Mbege. Sawyer had previously resolved that she was going to stay far away from them, but Miller had other ideas. Bellamy looked at Miller with curiosity.

"You gave her a knife?" he asked Miller incredulously, Sawyer realizing that she still had the knife in her hand. She almost made a move to hide it, but decided against it. She also decided that it annoyed her that he didn't talk directly to her, but to Miller about her.

"Yeah. She can handle herself." Miller grinned at Sawyer, and Bellamy stared her down for a minute and she stared back, knowing that he was sizing her up. Trying to figure out if she was a threat. Sawyer did the same, but she already knew that he was a threat. He had been a threat since the minute he'd shown up on the dropship; he wasn't one of them, but most of the girls seemed glad to have someone like him on the dropship that they didn't even question it. Sawyer knew that he was good looking; with his freckles, tan skin, and dark hair, he looked like he'd been on the ground most of his life, if one dismissed the guard uniform and gel in his hair. When he was satisfied, he moved on.

"We need to get these bracelets off of people. We start tonight."

"How?" Murphy asked, obviously doubting Bellamy. Sawyer rose her eyebrows at him; if he was going to follow Bellamy, shouldn't he not be doubting what he can do? She found herself staring at his hair, wondering how it stayed in the position that it did. It must've taken a lot of hair product to get it in that position.

"I can make them do it," he confirmed, and Murphy looked doubtful, but shrugged.

"Whatever you say, boss." Murphy said sarcastically, and him and Mbege walked away. Sawyer was relieved when they left.

"Miller, start a fire." he nodded at Bellamy, and walked to gather some of the wood that people had brought back to camp throughout the day. Bellamy looked at Sawyer again for a minute before she turned away. Even though he wasn't an actual guard, the uniform still made the hairs on her neck stand on edge. She walked around camp, listening to small sections of different conversations. The majority of them were about the excitement of being on the ground, and how amazing Earth is. One of the girls had found flowers not too far from camp, and was sitting on the ground, inhaling them deeply. She had been doing that for ten minutes. Eventually deciding that she'd rather be helping than doing nothing, she attempted to help Miller with building the fire. He'd let her help him build it, but when it got to lighting it and Miller couldn't, he wouldn't let her try.

"Kid, I'm not giving you the flint. You'll hurt yourself," Miller refused, flicking his knife against it more.

"For fucks sake, just give me the flint," she insisted, and he looked genuinely surprised. So was she, and she took the opportunity to grab the flint out of his hand. Flicking it a couple of times, she began to get frustrated when she couldn't do it either. Hitting the flint with her knife out of annoyance, she was surprised when a spark came out of it, barely lighting one of the dead leaves he'd brought as kindling.

"Why are you better at this than I am?" he asked her, annoyed, trying to keep the spark alive. It soon caught onto the larger pieces of wood, and they had their fire just in time for it to begin getting dark. Once it was dark, Bellamy called all of the prisoners over to stand around the fire. He was standing with them surrounding him, and he was flanked by Murphy and Mbege on one side, and Miller had forced Sawyer to stand by him on the other side. It seemed like Miller had appointed himself Sawyer's personal watchdog. Sawyer felt ridiculous as everyone around her towered over her, and it made her feel trapped. She was distracted from elaborating on this when Bellamy began speaking.

"The Ark locked you all up, sent you down here to die. They sent _us_ down here to die. These bracelets are helping them monitor everything we do, every move we make. We're down here, doing the hard work while they're sitting in their chairs, waiting for us to either live or die. They don't care if we do, but if we don't, they'll follow us down here. And we'll be right back to where we started, picking up their trash, cleaning up after them, cooking for them, doing everything that they don't want to do. I don't know about you, but I'm sick of helping them when they've done nothing to help us." small conversations and agreements sparked as Bellamy was talking, the last met with an enthusiastic agreement. Sawyer found herself getting more pissed off at the Ark as Bellamy was talking, and she could tell that the rest of them were also. "I say we stop helping them. I say we take off these bracelets, and let them know that they can't control us anymore!" He punctuated the ending by throwing a bracelet into the fire, and Sawyer figured it was hers. The crowd agreed with Bellamy, and as soon as one of the guys got his taken off, the rest of them cheered, and there was suddenly a line to remove the bracelets. Bellamy looked pleased with himself and stepped out of the way as more and more bracelets were thrown into the fire, Murphy and Mbege making themselves useful taking them off. Sawyer avoided looking at Mbege, but her anxiety spiked whenever she heard his voice. He had the look on his face that he hated her, and that he knew. She didn't know how he would know, but he _knew._

"Isn't it beautiful?" Bellamy's arms were crossed and said it more to himself than to Sawyer, but she found herself making a noise of agreement. She looked at him in the firelight, the flickering light illuminating his strong features. She found herself thinking once more that he was actually attractive, when she ignored the uniform that he was in. He also had strong leadership qualities, which Sawyer found admirable. Bellamy turned his head to look at her and met her eyes. Neither of them looked away for a minute until she transferred her stare back to the firelight, and could feel his eyes still on her, examining her. Everything was going along smoothly until Wells walked up, pissed off by their actions. _When isn't he pissed off?_ Sawyer wondered to herself. As Fox got her bracelet taken off, the crowd cheered when Murphy held it up like a prize.

"What the hell are you doing?" Wells asked them, looking directly at Bellamy, who stopped admiring what he'd caused and looked at Wells, still with the pleased expression on his face. Mbege walked forward, ready to fight Wells until Bellamy put his hand out to stop him. _It's pretty fucking easy to see what we're doing._

"We're liberating ourselves, what does it look like?" the question was rhetorical, but of course Wells answered it anyways. He always had to have his opinion heard. _Just like his father_ , Sawyer thought bitterly. His father always had a say in everything, and apparently Wells thought he deserved the same.

"It looks like you're trying to get us all killed," Wells told Bellamy, and then raised his voice. "The communication system is dead. These wristbands are all we've got. Take them off, and the Ark will think we're dying, that it's not safe for them to follow." his voice sounded like he was pleading with them, but it was thick with his own agenda. He just wanted his father to follow him down.

"That's the point, Chancellor," he said the title mockingly, and a few people laughed. "We can take care of ourselves, can't we?" he yelled the last part towards the crowd, who agreed with him enthusiastically. Sawyer found herself nodding, the sound of Miller yelling in agreement was enough for the both of them. Bellamy smirked at the agreement, getting the reaction that he wanted to. _Bellamy always got the reaction that he wanted,_ Sawyer thought to herself. He was a strong influence on their actions.

"You think this is a game? Those aren't just our friends and our parents up there. They're our farmers, our doctors, our engineers." Wells started trying to rally the crowd like Bellamy was. _Who fucking cares? They haven't done anything for me._

"I don't care what he tells you. We won't survive here on our own. And besides, if it really is safe, how could you not want the rest our people to come down?" _Wells said the wrong thing,_ Sawyer thought to herself. His people weren't her people. He came from Alpha, her from Factory. He didn't know what hardship looked like, he didn't know what working for himself looked like. He didn't know what it was like to have parents constantly wondering if they're going to eat, or if they're going to give the small amount of rations they'd earned to their daughter instead so she could have a full meal.

"My people already are down. Those people locked my people up. Those people killed my mother for the crime of having a second child." Bellamy was walking towards Wells, and Sawyer knew that if she was in Wells' position, she would be terrified. She noticed that he was using the same words as Murphy earlier; he was letting his emotions show. "Your father did that."

"My father didn't write the laws."

"Weak ass excuse," Miller muttered to Sawyer and she nodded in agreement.

"No. He enforced them, but not anymore. Not here. Here, there are no laws." people yelled in agreement with Bellamy once more. "Here, we do whatever the hell we want, whenever the hell we want. Now, you don't have to like it, Wells. You can even try to stop it, or change it, kill me. You know why? Whatever the hell we want."

"Whatever the hell we want!" Murphy yelled, trying to get the crowd to chant. And so they did.

"Whatever the hell we want! Whatever the hell we want!" they began chanting, and Miller nudged Sawyer to get her to do the same, and she just stared at him. He shrugged, and kept chanting. "Whatever the hell we want!" Wells and Bellamy were locked in a staredown, Bellamy looking more pleased with himself and Wells looking more pissed off. All of a sudden, thunder cracked, and the sky opened up, pouring rain down on them. The hundred began whooping and cheering, and Sawyer found herself tilting her head towards the sky, and smiling her first genuine smile in years.

"So she smiles!" she heard Miller say next to her, and she looked at him and was too content in that moment to do anything other than a half hearted glare. Miller laughed at her. She heard people running inside of the dropship. "We should go inside, you're going to be freezing!" Sawyer just shook her head. She'd spent the last 4 years being inside, and the last 18 being on the space station - she'd rather stay outside and be freezing than be packed inside of the dropship. Miller shook his head at her, and Sawyer heard Wells and Bellamy arguing again. Miller left, going into the dropship.

"You look like a drowned animal," Bellamy came up behind her and said, and she turned around to look at him, brushing her hair back behind her face. His hair was plastered to his forehead.

"Speak for yourself," she said, and couldn't resist giving him a small smile. He smirked back at her, pushing the hair back from his forehead.

"Let's go inside," Bellamy told her, gesturing for her to go first.

"Nope."

"That wasn't a suggestion." Sawyer shrugged at him, and started walking backwards towards the tree line. He crossed his arms and stared at her, trying to figure out what she was doing. When she got into the tree line, the trees formed enough of a canopy so that the water wasn't getting on her, but she wouldn't be inside. Bellamy just turned around to go into the dropship, leaving Sawyer to her own devices. It wasn't long before Miller came out and ran towards Sawyer, getting soaked in the process.

"What are you doing out here?!" Miller asked, looking at Sawyer like she was insane. Sawyer was sitting on the ground, her back pressed up against one of the trees and her head tilted back. She was watching the way that the rain hit the ground, and that the wind blew it towards her so that she would occasionally get wet. The rain was mesmerizing, and watching the way it bounced off of the dropship amused her in a way.

"Sitting."

"Thank you, smart ass," Miller rolled his eyes, still standing in front of her. "Come on, let's go inside."

"No," she refused, and decided to examine him. He was also decently attractive, not as much as Bellamy, but in his own way. He still had a type of innocence in him that hadn't been completely taken away or stripped. Sawyer couldn't imagine him committing any sort of crime. His features were strong, and he was muscular, with a nice smile. No, he wasn't bad looking at all.

"You're being an idiot. Come inside." Sawyer just rose her eyebrows at him. "You'll freeze!"

"I'll be fine," Sawyer dismissed him, and shifted her gaze back to the rain. Miller shook his head, and looked like he was considering arguing more, but realized that he'd lost her attention. He sighed and went back into the tent, leaving Sawyer out for the night.

She was freezing, of course, but she wouldn't let either of them know that.

 **Quick A/N: thank you for all of the attention this story is getting! I'm glad y'all are liking it.**


	4. The One with the Rescue Mission

**A/N: You guys should let me know who you see Sawyer as, actress wise. I honestly have no idea.**

"You're sleeping with me." Sawyer rose an eyebrow at Miller, who was standing in front of her. She'd stayed under the tree line, and when the rain had stopped, Miller had gone to find her. She was sitting with her back against a tree, and was planning on staying there for the night. Miller had his hand out for her to take. "Just come inside."

"No."

"You're stubborn," Miller told her, looking thoroughly unimpressed. "It's warmer in there."

"Fuck off, Miller." she honestly just wanted to sleep outside, by herself, alone. Sawyer thought that her nightmares would be better on the ground, and being outside, not inside where she was in close quarters, would be best. Maybe if she was away from everything that reminded her of the Ark, she wouldn't have to worry about dreaming about it. It seemed like a useless hope, but she was still hoping. She'd had them every single night on the Ark, and one peaceful nights sleep would be great.

"Nope." Miller plopped down next to her, and Sawyer realized that she was just going to have to deal with Miller being there. He wasn't going to leave. Sawyer sighed and lied down, Miller laying a few feet away from her. He turned and looked at her like he wanted to say something, but she glared at him, so he decided against it. After staring at the sky for a bit, she drifted asleep.

" _I need you to come into this room, I have to search you," the guard told her, and Sawyer looked at him curiously. She'd seen people be searched all of the time, especially in Factory; the Ark thought all of them were criminals. But they just wanted to live, they were all really sweet people!_

" _Okay," she said, and went into the door that he was holding open. She figured that it would go quickly, and she would make it home in time for dinner. The door slammed shut and the lights flickered on, she saw the faces of three guards in front of her and one standing behind her. Her smile fell, and she realized that she wasn't going to make it home in time for dinner._

Sawyer jolted awake, shaking violently. She went to wipe the sweat off of her forehead and she could hardly move her hands up to her face, they were shaking so violently. She tried to take a couple of deep breaths, attempting to calm herself down from the nightmare. Apparently they were not better on the ground. She stood up, using the tree to balance herself, kicking something slightly as she stood up. Realizing that it was Miller, she swore, making sure that he was asleep before walking away from their sleeping spot. It was barely getting light, so Sawyer didn't want to go into camp and risk waking people up. Instead, she ventured into the forest, wanting to practice throwing the knife that Miller had given her the day before.

Stopping in a clearing, she eyed the target that she wanted to hit. Grabbing the handle of the knife, she attempted to throw it, and it landed feet away from the tree. Swearing, she went to grab it, for the same result. She continued trying to throw it, and was able to hit the tree. The problem was making it stick, and having it land where she actually wanted it to.

"Hold it by the blade," she heard a voice ring out and she jumped, turning to face Miller, who had popped up at some point in her throwing the knife. He took his out and lined up the knife before throwing it by the blade, and made it stick perfectly. "And throw it harder." Sawyer nodded and tried throwing it by the blade, and it hit the same spot once more. "Again."

Sawyer kept trying to throw it, and her arm was sore by the time the knife actually implanted itself in the tree. Miller whooped, giving her a huge grin as she retrieved her knife. "Now do it again." Miller made her do it several more times before he gave her a break.

"Let's go back to camp." Sawyer nodded in agreement, pulling her knife out of the tree for the tenth time. Miller had made her keep throwing it, to make sure that it wasn't just a fluke and she actually knew how to make it stick now. They were walking back to camp in silence before Miller broke that.

"How old even are you? 12?" he was joking with her, and she recognized that, but rolled her eyes in annoyance. He was trying to make small talk, and she didn't particularly want to do so, but decided to humor him.

"18." she figured that she was close enough to 18 to call herself 18, and he laughed at her.

"You look like you're 12."

"You act like you're 12," Sawyer immediately retorted, and Miller let out a low whistle.

"You insult like you're 12," he said, facing forward. She glared at him, and after a minute he turned to look at her before laughing again at the expression on her face. They walked back to camp and were almost there when they heard a girl scream. Miller began running immediately, Sawyer meandering behind him, making it to the clearing by the time a girl ran away from Murphy and Wells, towards the woods where Sawyer just came out of. Miller was standing next to Bellamy, so she followed him, purposefully placing Miller between her and Mbege.

"You can stop this," Wells pleaded with Bellamy.

"Stop this? I'm just getting started." Murphy leaped out, punching Wells in the face and knocking him to the side. The two were fist fighting, and Wells had Murphy on the ground, surprisingly beating the shit out of him. He knocked Murphy unconscious, supposedly, and stood up, reeling on Bellamy.

"Don't you see you can't control this?" Wells asked Bellamy, who was too preoccupied with Murphy, who hadn't been knocked out. He pulled a knife out and got up.

"You're dead." he started walking towards Wells, and Bellamy put his hand up to stop him,

"Wait." Sawyer was surprised that Bellamy was stopping the fight. He seemed to thrive on chaos. He pulled out a knife.

"Fair fight," he told Wells, tossing the knife to his feet. Wells looked at it for a minute before diving for the knife, getting into position to fight Murphy. The two stabbed at each other generally, making Sawyer's nerves stand on edge. She didn't like either of them, but watching someone get stabbed isn't exactly something that she wanted to do. Her heart was pumping quickly at the possibility of seeing another dead body, and she knew that she had to leave. She turned around and made to leave, and someone grabbed her arm, yanking her back. She whipped around and brought down her hand that still had her knife in it, feeling it slash flesh as soon as Murphy said "this is for my father."

"What the fuck?!" the person screamed. It was Mbege. _Of course it was Mbege_ , Sawyer thought, trying to push the thought of vomiting out of her head. Everyone was turning to face them, and Wells had Murphy with a knife to his throat.

"You grabbed me," she said bluntly, wiping the blade off on the grass. He pulled out a knife, making it clear he was going to retaliate. She tried to make it seem like she wasn't on the verge of having a panic attack, but it was suddenly extremely hard to breathe.

"So you fucking cut me?"

"Mbege, drop the knife." he angrily threw down her knife, knowing he wouldn't be able to argue against Bellamy.

"I'll fucking kill you," Mbege threatened her, walking away from the fight.

"Whatever the hell you want," Sawyer muttered, her voice shaking, picking up her knife and wiping the blood off onto the grass.

"You picked the wrong person to stab," Bellamy told her, and Sawyer rolled her eyes at him, calmly putting her knife away and hoping that he couldn't see her hand shaking. She glanced up, noticing the look that Bellamy was giving her. He had his eyebrow raised, like he was trying to figure her out.

"Watch your back, kid. There is nothing preventing him from killing you. You're making enemies quickly," he told her and she just nodded as he told her everything that she already knew, noting in the back of her mind that he'd called her "kid". She shrugged and turned to the blonde girl that just entered the clearing. Sawyer began counting her breaths. _Breathe in._

"Wells!" she'd yelled and Wells and Murphy both turned to face her. "Let him go!" _Hold._ Wells threw Murphy on the ground in front of him. _Was that really necessary?_ Sawyer wondered. _Breathe out._ He had his arm around the kid's neck, throwing him to the ground was excessive. Murphy thought so as well, readying himself to launch himself at Wells. _Breathe in._

"Woah, hey!" Bellamy interjected quickly, turning his attention away from blondie and grabbing Murphy. "Enough, Murphy." _Hold._ Seeing the brown haired girl limping, who Sawyer figured out was his sister. Bellamy ran over to her. "Octavia, are you alright?" he took her out of another guy's arms. _Breathe out._

"Yeah," Octavia grunted, struggling to find her footing. _Breathe in._

"Where's the food?" Bellamy asked the group, who had spread out and were looking like wrecks.

"We didn't make it to Mount Weather," the Spacewalker told him, sitting on the stump of a tree that'd been chopped down. _Hold._

"What the hell happened out there?" Bellamy was pissed, both that his sister was hurt and that they hadn't brought back any food. How were they supposed to eat? _Breathe out_.

"We were attacked," the blonde girl told him. Sawyer was breathing mostly normal now, so she turned her full attention to the group, vaguely noticing that her hands were still badly shaking. She gripped her knife to attempt to stop them.

"Attacked? By what?" Wells asked her, looking overly concerned. Sawyer rolled her eyes at the adoration and concern in his eyes. _Why can't people understand that showing emotion is weakness?_

"Not what. Who," the Spacewalker clarified. "Turns out, when the last man from the ground died on the Ark, he wasn't the last Grounder." everyone looked shocked. People were still living on this radiation soaked planet?

"It's true. Everything we thought we knew about the ground is wrong. There are people here, survivors. The good news is, that means we can survive. Radiation won't kill us." Sawyer noticed that the blonde girl who agreed with Wells also had a strong leadership quality, unfortunately. She liked Bellamy's way of handling things, and the blonde girl thought that the Ark should come down, something which Sawyer strongly opposed.

"Yeah, the bad news is the Grounders will." Spacewalker delivered the uplifting news.

"Where's the kid with the goggles?" Wells asked them.

"Jasper was hit," the blonde girl started. Apparently the kid with the goggles has a name. Go figure. "They took him." _Why would they want one of us?_ "Where's your wristband?" she grabbed at Well's arm, yanking up his sleeve.

"Ask him." Wells gestured to Bellamy, who the blonde girl quickly looked at, seething.

"How many?" her voice would've sounded murderous if Sawyer was afraid of her in the slightest.

"24 and counting," Murphy said proudly, and Sawyer felt a sense of pride that she was the first one.

"You idiots," the girl whispered harshly. "Life support on the Ark is failing. That's why they brought us down here. They need to know the ground is survivable again, and we need their help against whoever is out there."

"Fuck them," Sawyer said quietly, or so she thought, and she heard Miller bark out a laugh. The blonde girl glared at him.

"If you take off your wristbands, you're not just killing them. You're killing us." _Damn, she really has no faith in us._ Sawyer saw the gears turning in Bellamy's head as he thought of a retort to ensure that they are on his side.

"We're stronger than you think," he started. "Don't listen to her. She's one of the privileged. If they come down, she'll have it good. How many of you can say the same? We can take care of ourselves. That wristband on your arm? It makes you a prisoner. We are not prisoners anymore!"

"Hell yea we aren't," Miller agreed.

"They say they'll forgive your crimes. I say, you're not criminals! You're fighters, survivors. The Grounders should worry about us!" everybody agreed with Bellamy, and Sawyer agreed, but she thought that the last part was a bit excessive. Sawyer agreed with him a lot more than she agreed with the blonde girl. Maybe they had a chance of surviving if they actually learned how to fight with skill, but with the way things were, the only thing that they had going for them was brute force and adrenaline. And neither of those things would win against the so-called opponents that the blonde girl had seen, if they were trained to actually fight all of their lives. People from Factory knew how to survive, but not to that extent. They knew how to go days without eating and not let that affect their lives.

"Bellamy, we need to train these people," Miller told Bellamy as he walked away from where he was leading the group, running to catch up to him. Sawyer trailed behind them,

"No, Miller, we need to figure out a way to keep them out," Bellamy told him. "If what Princess is saying about the Grounders is true, and they're trying to find ways to kill us, then we need to keep them out."

"How are we going to do that?"

"I'll figure it out," Bellamy reassured Miller as he diverged and went to find Octavia while Sawyer followed Miller. He'd stopped and waited for her to catch up.

"You know, you're really short," Miller informed her when she caught up to him.

"No fucking way," Sawyer said under her breath, but of course he caught it and laughed.

"You've got a mouth on you, kid. You're going to get yourself killed with that," Miller grinned at her, and Sawyer found herself wondering how this man ever committed a crime. He was too damn happy all of the time to commit a crime, especially since he knew that he would die from it. Factory could've used a bit more cheer - that is, if he was from Factory. She didn't remember him, but then again, she didn't remember anybody. Being locked up for years did a number on her. She could remember what people looked like when she was locked up: she remembered her friends, her family, hell, even her little 14 year old boyfriend she could remember. But nobody remembered her, and that was fine. If they did, they'd probably put two-and-two together by now and figured out why she was locked up. The two sat down on a log in silence for a little bit before Miller broke it.

"I never told you how I got locked up. I stole shit. Got caught. Hard not to when your father's the captain of the guard," Miller grinned at her and she froze.

"Captain of the guard? Pretentious much?" she asked back, trying to seem light-hearted, and he nodded proudly.

"Yup. I remember when he was promoted, it was a great night," he smiled at the memory, lost in thought, ignoring the second half of what she said.

"I have to go," she blurted out, feeling like her heart was going to burst out of her chest. She got up off of the log and started to speed walk away, ignoring Miller calling for her in the distance. If Miller's father was the captain of the guard, then he'd definitely heard about the girl who'd killed 4 guardsmen. And he'd definitely heard about her, there was no doubt about that. And he might've known the guardsmen who died. He knew about her already, and he probably wanted her dead.

She would if she was him.

Sawyer was trying to get through camp to get to the treeline, where she could go to the clearing that she was in before when she literally ran into somebody, the person wrapped their hands around her arms. Sawyer immediately look a step back, letting their hands drop.

"Hey, you okay?" she looked up and saw that it was Bellamy who she'd literally run into. _Great._ She internally groaned and gave a short nod.. _I look like a complete idiot_ , she thought. It was then that they noticed that they had an audience. _It's only getting better._ She'd walked straight into the group that was Bellamy, Murphy, Wells, another guy, Octavia, and the blonde chick. She stepped forward again and became a part of the circle, figuring that it was the perfect way to distract herself.

"Anyway, why would I want to follow you?" Bellamy asked the blonde chick.

"Because you want them to follow you, and right now they're thinking only one of us is scared," the blonde chick was almost taunting Bellamy with the respect of the 100, and she could see by the look on Bellamy's face that it was working.

"Murphy. You. Come with me. Atom?" the other guy, who was quite attractive, turned to look at Bellamy. His eyes were a startling blue. "My sister doesn't leave this camp. Is that clear?"

"I don't need a babysitter," Octavia protested, which Bellamy ignored. Sawyer rolled her eyes at the way that Bellamy called her "you", but dealt with it.

"Anybody touches her, they answer to me." Atom nodded in agreement. "Let's go." Once again, Bellamy took up the leadership position, and Sawyer took a second to respond, forgetting that she was now involved with the group. She'd caught up with Murphy and Bellamy, who were walking behind Wells and the blonde chick. She saw the way that Murphy was eyeing her and made sure to put Bellamy between them. It was a scared move, sure, but she didn't want to die because of Murphy. That wasn't a remarkable way to die.

"You stabbed my friend," Murphy wound up next to her somehow. Sawyer ignored him. He grabbed her arm, yanking her back to him. She tried to pull her arm out of his grasp, and he just held it tighter. "I was talking to you."

"As I recall, that exact move is what got your _friend_ cut," Sawyer tried to speak menacingly, but it was difficult when she was almost a head shorter than him. That wasn't the right thing to say, apparently, because Murphy looked even more pissed.

"Murphy, let her go or you're going back," Bellamy threatened him, and Sawyer couldn't help but think that he seemed like a father scolding his child. Murphy looked extremely unhappy, and begrudgingly let her go. Sawyer glared at him, walking in front of him and pulling her knife out of her boot just in case.

"Fucking hate being small," she muttered to herself, and Bellamy smirked, obviously hearing her.

"What did I tell you about making enemies?" Bellamy asked her, and she shrugged. "You're going to get yourself killed."

"So I've heard." she'd heard almost the same thing from Miller just a few minutes ago, and maybe she did have a death wish, considering she'd already pissed off two of the most dangerous people in camp.

"What's your name?" Bellamy asked her after a minute, and she rose her eyebrows at him.

"Sawyer." he nodded at her, and went back to being deep in thought. She suddenly became extremely concerned that he'd heard about her somehow, and started running the scenarios through her head. The way that Bellamy carried himself seemed like he'd been in an authoritative position before, and he knew how to intimidate people. So, Sawyer figured that maybe he was once in the guard. Maybe before his sister had gotten caught.

"Since when are we in the rescuing business, huh?" Murphy asked after a minute, disrupting Sawyer's thoughts.

"The Ark thinks the Prince is dead. Once they think the Princess is, too, they'll never come down," Bellamy responded, causing Sawyer to smirk. She'd definitely chosen the right person to follow. "I'm getting that wristband, even if I have to cut her hand off to do it."

"How are you planning on doing that?" Murphy asked him.

"I'll think about it."

"Hey, hold up," Bellamy caught up to the blonde girl after a bit of speed walking. "What's the rush? You don't survive a spear through the heart." he'd taken his gun out as he heard a noise a ways back, and still had it out. Sawyer could see that it was making Wells nervous, and was happy that he was uncomfortable. _About time._

"Put the gun away, Bellamy," Wells ordered, causing Murphy to leap forward.

"Well, why don't you do something about it, huh?" as much as Sawyer was already not liking Murphy, she had to admire his desire to protect himself, and his people. Apparently Bellamy was now one of those people.

"Jasper screamed when they moved him. If the spear struck his heart, he'd have died instantly. It doesn't mean we have time to waste," the blonde girl answered Bellamy. Sawyer rolled her eyes, and she caught them. "Do you have something to say?"

"He's dead. Accept it," Sawyer told her bluntly. She looked like she was expecting Sawyer to say something more, and when she didn't, she got more irritated.

"Who even are you?" she assessed Sawyer, then reached out and tried to grab her wrist that used to hold her wristband. Sawyer yanked away, tired of people grabbing her arms. "What, another one of his groupies, taking off your wristband to impress Bellamy?"

"Back off of her. Speaking about that, as soon as you take this wristband off, we can go," Bellamy grabbed the blonde girl's arm, and she quickly yanked it away. Sawyer wanted to scoff; she couldn't get her arm grabbed but she was going to grab Sawyer's?

"The only way the Ark is gonna think I'm dead is if I'm dead. Got it?" the blonde girl was getting in Bellamy's face. Murphy and Sawyer were both about to step forward when Bellamy responded.

"Brave princess," he said mockingly.

"Hey, why don't you find your own nickname?" the Spacewalker interjected, and Sawyer jerked around, wondering how long he'd been following them. "You call this a rescue party? Got to split up, cover more ground. Clarke, come with me."

"So the bitch has a name," Sawyer said under her breath, and Wells looked like he was about to get in her face. A lightbulb went off in her head. So _this_ was the Clarke that the Council Member had spoken about. Another child of a Council Member. Fantastic.

"What is wrong with you? What did she do to you?" Wells asked her, and Bellamy and Murphy were both on edge in case he jumped at her. Sawyer felt a sense of pride that both of them were willing to defend her, even though Murphy had all but threatened to kill her 20 minutes prior.

" _Her_ and _your_ father voted to float me. _They_ voted me into solitary for four fucking years." Sawyer had taken a step closer to him, and spoken low, and hoped she looked menacing, but Wells just looked at her surprised. Sawyer debated if she'd crossed her own line about not getting emotional; does pissed off count as emotional? She wasn't sure.

"You're not 18. They can't vote to float you until you're 18, that's illegal." Sawyer gave a short, ironic laugh at his defense of the Ark's legal system.

"You counsel children have no idea what it's actually like," Murphy interjected. Wells looked like he wanted to reply before Bellamy walked between them.

"You done?" he asked over his shoulder, and they all set off on a trail parallel to Clarke and the Spacewalker.

"Four years, huh? What'd you do? Kill someone?" Murphy asked her as he walked next to her, and she looked at him out of the corner of her eye and ignored his question. He whistled low. "Damn, shorty, didn't think you had it in you." In following Bellamy and Wells, somehow they'd gotten separated at some point, and Murphy didn't want to face the fact that they were lost.

"We're lost," Sawyer told him, standing still and crossing her arms.

"No, we're not. They're right up ahead," Murphy tried to get her to walk more, and she raised an eyebrow at him.

"You're an idiot."

"Just walk. They're right there, I can hear them."

"You don't hear shit."

"Just fucking walk."

"No." Murphy glared at her as she stood her ground, them locked in a staring contest. They were silent for several minutes, glaring at each other before she heard Clarke yell that they'd found something. Trying to follow her voice to the West (Murphy said it was coming from the West, she said East, apparently her opinion doesn't matter), they heard Bellamy calling for them. From the East.

"I swear to god, shorty, if you say 'I told you so', I'll kill you in your sleep," Murphy threatened her, and she ignored the threat, choosing to be childish for once.

"I told you so," she told him before taking off running, Murphy groaning behind her.

"Do you have to run?" he grumbled before picking up his pace. They found the others soon enough, Sawyer breaking through the trees seconds before Murphy.

"Took you long enough," Wells grumbled, and Murphy glared at him.

"Shorty here won't admit when she's lost," Murphy informed him, and Sawyer turned around to glare at him.

"Fucking liar," she said and he grinned sarcastically at her, she rolled her eyes and walked forward again.

"Maybe I was wrong about you making enemies," Bellamy told her and she looked at him curiously. "He's checking out your ass." Sawyer looked down and felt her cheeks heating up. She hadn't had any form of male attention since she was 14, and she'd developed more since then. It made her anxious, but also made her self-esteem grow a bit that a sociopath found her attractive.

"Maybe there's hope for me after all," she said quietly enough for only him to hear and he laughed. Murphy cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"Hey, how do we know this is the right way?" Murphy asked.

"We don't. Spacewalker thinks he's a tracker," Bellamy responded to him, and of _course_ Wells had to respond to him.

"It's called 'cutting sign', Fourth-year Earth Skills. He's good," Wells told him, and Murphy was about to make a comment when Spacewalker started talking.

"You want to keep it down or should I paint a target on your backs?" Murphy whistled.

"Spacewalker's got attitude." They halted so Spacewalker could investigate some branches or some shit. Sawyer didn't particularly care, but Clarke was paying close attention. She was so interested in him that it was almost painful to watch.

"It's pathetic to watch them," Bellamy muttered to Sawyer, and she nodded in agreement with him. Bellamy learned towards Wells.

"See? You're invisible." _Apparently the Prince has a thing for the Princess._ That was about as obvious as Clarke being interested in the Spacewalker. They heard a moan of pain in the distance.

"What the hell was that?" Murphy asked.

"Now would be a good time to take out that gun," Clarke told Bellamy, and he complied. They followed the Spacewalker towards the moaning, and found the kid soon. They broke through the trees into a clearing, where past all of the small trees and land, there was a huge tree, and Jasper was tied up to a tree.

"Shit," Murphy whispered as response. There was some sort of green thing on his chest, and he was strung up like bait.

"Oh my god," Clarke said and started to walk closer.

"Clarke, be careful," Spacewalker warned, and she ignored him.

"Jasper?" she asked, and Sawyer couldn't keep her eyes off of the kid as she was walking forward with them.

"What the hell is this?" Bellamy asked, just as Clarke stepped onto the fake ground, falling into a pit. Bellamy immediately grabbed her, saving her from falling onto the multitude of sharp sticks that were poking out of the ground.

"Clarke! Get her up," the Spacewalker ordered, and Bellamy stood there holding her. He almost looked like he was debating dropping her, until people started yelling at him.

"Get her! Pull her up, pull her up, pull her up." Spacewalker and Wells rushed forward and helped Bellamy pull Clarke up.

"You okay?" Spacewalker asked her, and Sawyer almost rolled her eyes. She wasn't dead, obviously she was fine.

"Yeah," Clarke responded, getting onto her feet. She shared a look with Bellamy. "We need to get him down." When no one said anything, Sawyer stepped around the hole and started to climb.

"What the hell are you doing?" Murphy demanded.

"Climbing," Sawyer told him like he was an idiot, finding a place to grab footing and pulling herself up. _Why doesn't someone help the smallest person here instead of standing there uselessly?_

"I'll help you," Wells started to step forward and the Spacewalker grabbed him.

"No, you need to stay with Clarke," he told Wells, and Clarke was too distracted to glare, which she probably would have done. "I'll go." Sawyer ignored him and just let him follow her.

"Maybe what they're trying to catch is us," Spacewalker interjected to the conversation that Sawyer wasn't listening to, and she whistled to get his attention. She was straddling the branch by the binds on his hands. If he was going to help her, he was going to have to pay attention. She started sawing through the binds on his hands and the Spacewalker climbed up to saw through the ones on his legs. There was growling in the distance, and the Spacewalker stopped.

"What the hell was that?" Murphy asked.

"Grounders?" Bellamy wondered and they all started looking around. Upon growling, they all turned to the left to see a large cat on the prowl. Bellamy reached for his gun, but it wasn't there any more. The cat started running.

"Bellamy, gun!" Clarke sounded terrified, and shots rang out, hitting the animal but not enough to stop it. Wells had taken Bellamy's gun and was firing it, obviously not with accuracy. The animal camouflaged into the tall grass, leaving them all looking around for the animal, standing on edge. Suddenly, the animal leaped out towards Bellamy, and another gunshot rang out, finally hitting the animal enough to incapacitate it. Wells tried to shoot more but the gun clicked; he'd wasted all of the bullets. He dropped it on the ground when he realized that they were gone.

"Now she sees you," Bellamy told Wells, obviously pissed off that he had taken his gun. Sawyer was pissed off that he had done it, also; he didn't have prior training, and, if Sawyer was right, Bellamy did. Did he honestly take his gun just to impress Clarke? He could've gotten them all killed because he was being an idiot. Shaking her head, she continued to cut Jasper down, finishing with his hands and his midsection quickly. Spacewalker finally snapped back into it to get him down with help from Bellamy, Murphy busy wrapping the animal in cloth to carry it back. They made a makeshift stretcher and loaded the almost-dead kid onto it, and set out to go back to camp.


	5. The One with Charlotte

Sawyer pushed her fists into her eyes, rubbing them violently. She was attempting to sleep, and couldn't because of a combination of being afraid of her nightmares and because Jasper just kept _screaming_. She was laying on her back with Miller next to her on his stomach. He groaned loudly when Jasper screamed, the same screams that were coming every time she had almost fallen asleep. Maybe it was a good thing to play hero with Bellamy, Murphy, Clarke, Wells and Spacewalker to save Jasper, but it seemed that all it'd done was piss off every single person in the vicinity. After another groan, Sawyer stood up and left where they were laying. Miller grumbled something but she'd ignored it, and wound up stumbling upon another screaming person. _Great._

"No! No!" this time it was a kid, and she was yelling in her sleep. On one hand, Sawyer felt the need to help the kid, since she'd had nightmares also. She wasn't a stranger to them. On the other hand, she just wanted to fucking _sleep._ The nice side of her won out, and she found herself shaking the girl awake.

"Hey, wake up." the girl awoke almost immediately and looked at Sawyer with something akin to shame all over her face. The girl still had baby fat, her face round and her eyes wide. Her eyes had seen horrors, but also still held a sense of naivety in them, that Sawyer found herself wanting to save. She reminded Sawyer of herself, before everything happened. Sawyer sat down next to her until the girl had awoken completely.

"Sawyer," she awkwardly introduced herself to the girl.

"Charlotte." she still looked terrified. She wrapped her hands around her knees, staring at them intently. Sawyer cleared her throat uncomfortably; she wasn't one to talk to initiate conversations. After a minute, the girl started talking with tears in her eyes. "It's my parents. They were floated and they - and I see it in my dreams and I just - I see it every night." They sat there for a minute in silence, Sawyer attempting to find something comforting to say, but was at a loss.

"Why are you here?" Charlotte looked surprised with the bluntness of Sawyer's question, but answered anyways. Sawyer slightly reprimanded herself. She wanted to comfort the girl, not make her more upset.

"Well, we were taking my parent's things to the redistribution center and I kind of lost it. They said I assaulted a guard." Sawyer laughed.

"Fucking wuss." Charlotte looked at her and laughed, and Sawyer felt a bit of pride that she could make her laugh. "I hate guards too."

"Really? Why?" Charlotte asked her, and Sawyer visibly stiffened before forcing herself to relax, her breath still caught in her throat. She attempted to swallow, but her mouth had gone dry. She couldn't believe that she let that out so easily.

"Don't worry," she ended up choking out. The two sat there in silence for a long time, listening to the fire crackle and pop and Jasper's groanings in the distance.

"Sawyer?" she looked at her. "How do you make them go away?"

"You face them."

"How?" Sawyer shrugged in response.

"Whatever happened up there, stays up there. It doesn't matter now. We got a second chance, and if yours is gonna be spent being terrified by what's in your dreams, then you're wasting it." Sawyer surprised herself by speaking so much, but Charlotte leaped forward and wrapped her arms around Sawyer, who stiffened once more, but the girl didn't let go. She couldn't bring herself to wrap her arm around her, but she didn't care anyways, and she stayed there. She was asleep within minutes, and Sawyer felt relieved that she could finally get out of the embrace.

It occurred to her that she hadn't been hugged in over four years. The feeling was foreign to her; affection was foreign to her. And apparently she'd gotten this little girl's affection quickly by being awkward and uncomfortable. She disentangled herself from Charlotte, and walked to the edge of camp.

"So the bitch has a heart. Better put that down in the books," Murphy said to her as she walked past where he was attempting to sleep. Sawyer ignored him, settling down almost to the edge of the campsite, where she lied awake for hours before deciding to go and practice with her knife once more.

After eating her breakfast, she wound up walking up behind Bellamy and Murphy, who were trying to throw their weapons to stick into a tree. Murphy threw his and it hit the tree, falling to the ground. Sawyer saw the opportunity to annoy Murphy, and took it. She threw her knife between the two of them and it stuck in the tree where Murphy's had hit seconds before. Both of them turned around to look at her, and Bellamy looked at Murphy with disappointment on his face, the message to "try harder" being clear.

"It's that damn kid, always messing with my head," Murphy made the excuse, because Jasper had groaned when he threw his knife.

"He's not gonna last much longer, and if the kid can make hers stick, you don't have an excuse." Bellamy looked at him unimpressed as he threw his axe perfectly so it stuck a foot above Sawyer's knife. "That's how it's done."

"We searched a half-mile in all directions, no sign of Trina or Pascal." Atom walked up to them with another person trailing behind, and Sawyer realized that she knew almost nobody's name. And it would be a problem if she was actually going to stick with these people.

"Visit your special tree when you were out there?" Murphy asked tauntingly, walking straight past Atom to get his knife.

"Atom took his punishment, let it go," Bellamy called after Murphy, and Sawyer found herself wondering what they were talking about, but not caring enough to ask.

"Could be Grounders," Atom continued as though he hadn't been interrupted, looking pissed off at Murphy. It was a common theme around camp. Everybody on camp agreed on three things: 1. Murphy is an asshole. 2. Wells is an asshole. 3. Jasper should shut the hell up.

"Yeah, or they could be in pound town. Lot of that going around recently," Murphy called behind his shoulder while walking back to the group with his knife. Bellamy went and retrieved his axe, and Sawyer's knife, tossing it to her and then spinning his axe in his hands. Octavia broke into sight, and Atom made awkward eye contact with her before looking at Bellamy. Things clicked in Sawyer's head. _Oh_.

"Look, Bellamy, people are scared, and that dying kid, he's not helping the morale around here," Atom looked more pissed off than before. _Lovely_.

"Morale will go up when I find them more food," Bellamy said in a dismissive way.

"And what do we say when they ask about Trina and Pascal?" the other man asked him.

"Now? Nothing. It's possible they're just lost. We'll keep an eye out for them when we go hunting later."

"Let's go kill something," Murphy spoke up. The entire conversation was punctuated with Jasper's screams, and Sawyer was grinding her teeth. Going from hearing nothing for four years to hearing a kid scream all of the time wasn't a welcome transition.

"You're not going. I need you to stay here," Bellamy told Murphy, and Sawyer wanted to laugh at Murphy's face when Bellamy told him that. It was obvious that Murphy didn't like being bossed around, but he usually submitted to Bellamy, now however was not one of those times. "If the Grounders are circling, we can't leave this place unprotected."

"If I'm staying, so should the kid," Murphy told Bellamy, gesturing to Sawyer. Bellamy looked at Murphy with an "are you kidding me?" look on his face.

"No. She's coming with me. We need the hunters," Bellamy told him, and Murphy was visibly getting irritated.

"Bellamy, you've got to be-" Murphy was cut off by Bellamy.

"Enough. You're staying." Murphy huffed, glaring at the back of Bellamy's head. Sawyer thought that he was being childish, and of course had to piss him off more.

"And you can't aim worth shit," Sawyer said just loud enough for him to hear, and Murphy turned his glare over to her. Apparently him finding her ass attractive wasn't enough to excuse her from his glares, and he scared her a bit, but she still didn't want to let him see that.

"Fine. Somebody better tell goggle boy to keep it shut," Murphy threatened, and the two groups parted ways, Sawyer following Bellamy, Atom, and the other kid. A few of them went to Bellamy's tent first, Miller had joined them at some point, when he crouched down with a stick.

"We, are here," he started by drawing an x in the dirt. "The river is here." he drew a wavy line. He mapped out the best that he could the area surrounding them, trying to figure out which direction would be best to hunt in. "Any ideas where to start?"

"Towards the river. We'll split into groups to cover more ground. Sawyer and I will go here, Miller and Jones will go here..." Bellamy began listing off names, but she stopped listening when Bellamy said that she would be hunting with him, not bothering to listen to anything else. He probably paired her with him because she was only a 5' tall small girl who couldn't hold her own against anything, so he felt the need to protect her. That annoyed her, but she could understand. She could make a knife stick in a tree, sure, but an animal? A moving target? That was a lot harder. Then why even let her go in the first place? Her thoughts were interrupted by Octavia bursting into the tent.

"What the hell did you do to Atom?" Bellamy and Miller looked at each other, as though they were trying to keep something a secret, which was failing terribly, apparently.

"Atom's fine," Bellamy shrugged and stood up, like it was no big deal. A couple of the guys filed out, but Miller remained, so Sawyer did also.

"Then why did he blow me off?" Octavia was pissed, anybody could see that. And if Bellamy actually did something to Atom to keep him away from Octavia, things were about to get a hell of a lot worse.

"Maybe he's just not interested." _That's bullshit,_ Sawyer thought. Octavia was gorgeous, and if anyone in the camp said that they weren't interested in Octavia, that would be a blatant lie. Atom just had the guts to go after her. Octavia saw it as bullshit, also.

"You can't keep everyone away from me."

"Atom had to learn. You disobey me, you pay the price. He paid the price, now we're good."

"Now I'm paying the price. So, next time you decide to go on a power trip, leave me out of it." Octavia looked like she wanted to say more, but she was cut off by a scream from Jasper that was different than any of the other screams they'd heard from him. She ran out of the tent, Bellamy following closely behind. Miller looked at Sawyer like he was debating going after Bellamy, and she shrugged, he sighed, and ran out after him. She considered doing so, but decided that she didn't really feel like running for someone who was going to die anyways. Bellamy was back in the tent in just a few minutes, running his hand through his hair and looking pissed off. He looked at Sawyer like he was surprised that she was still there.

"Kid's a goner. Princess doesn't see that, she's going to make everyone go insane because she doesn't want to accept that she's a lost cause. She can't save him." he sat down, his hands running through his hair still.

"She's not used to losing," Sawyer pointed out, and he looked at her and nodded.

"I'm killing him tomorrow if he doesn't get better. They looked at me like I'm a monster. What do they fucking expect? I don't want to kill him, but somebody has to make the hard choices around here." they were there a minute in silence. "I don't want to kill him," he repeated quieter.

"Murphy will if you don't." Bellamy laughed at that.

"Murphy wouldn't kill him, he would slaughter the kid. Like an animal." Sawyer felt disgusted at the thought, but her mind thought back to when she had slaughtered the four men. Blood, everywhere. She could feel it on her skin all of a sudden, and her breathing was getting shallower and she almost ran when Miller burst into the tent.

"Everyone is gathered, let's go hunting." Bellamy stood up and walked out, leaving Miller and Sawyer trailing behind him. Miller looked at Sawyer curiously.

"What did you talk about?" Miller asked, and Sawyer shrugged. Miller looked annoyed that she wouldn't answer him. The group all had various weapons, and Sawyer wasn't the only one with just a knife. They diverged into their separate groups, her following Bellamy, Jones and Miller following closely behind them. Another group brought up the rear, Atom and someone else. She wasn't sure how Bellamy had learned so quickly to step quietly, but she attempted to do the same, ignoring the sticks on the ground that he did. When she was trying to do it, she was good at stepping quietly, likely since she was so small. Jones hadn't gotten the memo, and sounded like he were trying to stomp through the forest. They left him behind, and Sawyer fell back to walk with Miller, letting Bellamy lead alone.

"I wonder why he brought you," Miller mused, looking at Sawyer. Sawyer didn't listen to him, trying to ignore him. Which he made impossible. "Probably because he feels the need to protect the small kid."

"I don't need protecting," she responded immediately, and Miller smirked.

"Of course you do. You're the shortest person in camp. I think the 12 year olds are taller than you are."

"Miller." he turned his head to look at Sawyer. "Stop. Talking."

"I'm sure he's just trying to help you," Miller kept talking. "Which is sweet, really. You probably remind him of his sister, you know, when she was 10. And if she could throw a knife." Sawyer refused to respond to him. "Except he probably wants to fuck you. That isn't a very sisterly thing."

"What?" she asked for clarification, forgetting that he was trying to ignore him. Miller laughed and didn't provide any further information, causing Sawyer to get increasingly annoyed, and tried to focus on the hunt. _He's probably making shit up. He's bored and wanted a reaction._ After a while, Bellamy held up his hand for them to stop walking.

"She's mine," he whispered to them. He started slowly going towards the boar, raising his axe to launch it when a stick broke behind them. The momentum from the swing already started and Bellamy released his axe, sinking it into a tree behind them. The boar heard the crack and was confused, and Sawyer took the opportunity to launch her knife towards it, sinking it somewhere in it. She flinched as it squealed, and then she turned to pay attention to Charlotte as Jones and Miller ran off to find the now injured boar.

"Who the hell are you?" Bellamy asked her, going to retrieve his axe.

"Charlotte."

"I almost killed you," he sounded pissed off, and rightfully so. Sawyer walked up to stand next to Bellamy, figuring the other guys could deal with the boar themselves.. "Why aren't you back at camp?"

"W-w-well with that guy who was dying, I just - I couldn't listen anymore."

"It's not safe for you to be out here," Sawyer told her, and Charlotte looked like she had disappointed Sawyer in some way. _Great, the kid thinks she has to impress me_ , she thought.

"You're out here!" Charlotte defended.

"I'm not a little kid," Sawyer was getting more annoyed by the second, just wanting to get the animal and go back to camp.

"I'm not little! I'm bigger than you are!" Charlotte was right, she was taller than Sawyer, but Sawyer immediately got extremely pissed off. Bellamy held his arm out, seeing how pissed off she was getting, and Charlotte looked mildly scared by her. _Good._

"Okay, then. But you can't hunt without a weapon," Bellamy pulled a knife out and handed it to Charlotte, making sure that she grabbed it by the handle. "Ever killed something before?" Charlotte shook her head. "Who knows? Maybe you're good at it." Sawyer was shocked by the smile that was on his face as he talked to Charlotte. She figured that it was the way that he'd talk to Octavia if Octavia was actually speaking with him. Charlotte smiled at Bellamy, and he tilted his head, gesturing that they were to get going. The two guys had bagged the boar, and Bellamy told them to go back to camp. Jones tossed Sawyer back her knife.

"I'm sorry I said that I'm bigger than you," Charlotte said like she was in trouble, and Sawyer shrugged.

"Don't do it again." Charlotte realized that it was all that she was going to get out of Sawyer, and followed her footsteps to help her step quieter. All of a sudden, they heard a loud horn blowing, and they all froze.

"What is that?" Bellamy asked, looking towards the sound in wonder.

"Grounders?" Charlotte asked, and neither of them replied. A yellow cloud began filling the sky, and as they were watching, it was getting bigger, like it was coming towards them.

"Run," Sawyer said quietly, and they stood there in shock for a minute before Bellamy realized that she was right.

"Come on, there are caves this way!" he yelled while running, and Sawyer and Charlotte were close behind him. Sawyer could see Charlotte falling slightly behind her, and considered falling back to help her, but that would mean both of them dying. Which Sawyer had been trying not to do ever since coming to Earth. When they started climbing the hill, Charlotte leaped forward and Sawyer instinctively grabbed ahold of her arm, almost dragging her up the hill along with her, following behind Bellamy. The cloud was almost touching them. Bellamy stood at the entrance as Sawyer and Charlotte ran inside.

"Bellamy!" a man called, that she recognized as Atom, and Bellamy stopped, taking a step out to look. "Bellamy!" it looked like he wanted to play the hero and run towards the voice, but Sawyer knew that the cloud had to be on him now. She reached out and yanked him into the cave, the gas flooding into the cave. After a second, Bellamy snapped back into it, rolling the stone over the entrance to the cave.

"What the hell was that?" he asked Sawyer, coughing from the gas. "I could've helped Atom."

"No, you couldn't have," Sawyer was coughing also from the brief exposure to the gas, knowing just from that that it's purpose was likely to kill them.

"You don't know that."

"Then go out there," Sawyer offered and from the look on Bellamy's face, it almost seemed like he was going to, before he sighed in defeat and found a place to sit down in the cave. Sawyer looked around the cave, and was suddenly struck by how small it was. She swallowed and found that her mouth was completely dry. Sinking against the wall, she pulled her knees up to her chest and ran her hands over her face, trying not to think about how the walls seemed to be closing in around her. She put her head on her knees, gripping her knife tightly in one hand, trying to find any comfort in the weapon.

"Sawyer?" Charlotte asked, and Sawyer felt the heat from the girl sitting down next to her. "Are you okay?"

"Fear of small spaces. My sister has it." Sawyer heard the sound of Bellamy sitting down next to her, and found no comfort in that. She gripped her knife tighter, finding a small amount of solace in the weapon. Her breathing was becoming more labored. Suddenly, Bellamy was closer, and he touched her arm. She jerked away from him and she looked up in time to see him raising his hands in surrender.

"Calm down," Bellamy told her, looking pointedly at the knife. She dropped it and put her hands over her face again, hearing the sound of her knife dropping echoing throughout the cave. Bellamy sighed and moved closer to her, and when he touched her arm, she resisted jerking away, but stiffened nonetheless.

"You have to breathe," he muttered to her, and tried to move her arm away from her face, but she shook her head. "Come on." he still spoke in the quiet voice, and he told her to breathe with him, and she tried to. When she started hyperventilating again, he moved her hands away from her face and grabbed her wrists.

"Sawyer, you need to breathe," it wasn't a command, but it wasn't said as nicely as the other things were. She felt her chest constricting still, and she tried to focus on his breathing like he said to do previously, and when she finally did, she could swallow the lump that was in her throat. She pulled her arms out of his grasp, where they'd fallen but he was still holding onto her wrists.

"Go to sleep, Charlotte. It's not going to let up till morning," Bellamy told Charlotte after they'd been in the cave for a while.

"You aren't sleeping!" she interjected, gesturing towards both of them when she realized that they'd made no movement to sleep.

"Sawyer and I are going to go to bed, too, Charlotte." she looked very skeptical, and Sawyer sighed, trying to nod convincingly. Charlotte sighed, knowing that the two of them wouldn't go to bed before she went to sleep. She found a divot in the cave wall, settling in. Once Charlotte fell asleep, Bellamy lied down.

"You need to sleep," it sounded more like an order than anything, and she just shrugged. "Sawyer."

"Go to sleep," she told him, and he just stared at her. And stared at her. She stared at him back.

"Why were you locked up?" he asked after he broke their staring contest.

"Go _the fuck_ to sleep." he laughed at her.

"Touchy." he decided not to bait her anymore, and was quiet for a minute, just looking around the cave. He sighed deeply, something that she'd noticed him doing a lot. Bellamy reached up like to run his hand through his hair, but since he was lying down, it didn't work, and his arm was awkwardly above his head. She didn't know how he fell asleep like that, but he did. Sawyer felt creepy examining them as they slept, but she had nothing better to do. Bellamy's face was soft, like it'd been since they'd been in the cave. She remembered the soft voice that Bellamy talked with when calming her down, and tried to figure out how that meshed into the hard leader persona that he'd put on. Charlotte looked more peaceful while she slept, like she was less terrified. Sawyer was sitting against the cave wall, trying not to freeze and trying not to think about how small the cave was. She attempted to sleep, but failed miserably, despite getting no sleep the night previous. It wasn't long before both her and Bellamy were startled by screams.

"Charlotte, wake up!" Bellamy sat up and woke her up, and Charlotte looked around panicked. The expression switched to ashamed very quickly.

"I'm sorry," she was looking at Bellamy and Sawyer, sounding guilty. Bellamy was kneeling next to her.

"Does it happen often?" Bellamy asked her softly, and Charlotte sighed in agreement. Sawyer decided to sit back and let him deal with it, since he was obviously going to be better at it than she was, judging by the tone of his voice. His features were softened along with his voice, and Sawyer stared at him for a minute, thinking again about how his leader persona fit into this. From what she could tell, this is who he was actually, and the leader was a role he had to put on. She understood. They all had roles that they needed to play, and this was Bellamy's.

"What are you scared of?" after a pause, he began again. "You know what? It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what you do about it."

"But… I'm asleep." Charlotte was confused, and Sawyer thought that she knew where Bellamy was going with it, thinking that it was going to be along the same lines of what she told the girl.

"Fears are fears. Slay your demons when you're awake, they won't be there to get you when you sleep."

"Yeah," Charlotte spoke like what he was saying was the most obvious thing ever, and Sawyer wanted to roll her eyes at the kid. "But how?"

"You can't afford to be weak. Down here, weakness is death, fear is death."

"You sound like Sawyer," Charlotte told him, and Bellamy rose his eyebrows.

"Yeah, well maybe she actually said something right." Sawyer glared at him and ignored it. "Let me see that knife I gave you." Charlotte gave it to him, and he gripped it.

"Now, when you feel afraid, you hold tight to that knife and you say. 'Screw you. I'm not afraid.'" he handed the knife back to Charlotte, who was obviously unconvinced by what he was saying. Sawyer was too - it was the cheesiest thing she'd ever heard in her life, but played along for the sake of the kid.

"Screw you. I'm not afraid," Charlotte said weakly, and Sawyer scoffed. Charlotte looked at her and Sawyer rose an eyebrow at her. Sighing, she spoke once more. "Screw you, I'm not afraid." satisfied with that, Bellamy patted her knee and went to walk back away.

"Slay your demons, kid. Then you'll be able to sleep." Charlotte curled up into a ball again, and Bellamy lied back down.

"Sawyer," Charlotte muttered a little while later, and Sawyer shifted her gaze back over. "I'm scared. Can you come lay with me?" Sawyer debated it for a minute in her head, and nodded before moving over. Charlotte did what she'd done previously and wrapped her arms around Sawyer, but this time she picked up Sawyer's arm and placed it around her. Sawyer watched her breathing, and she knew when Charlotte had fallen asleep. She realized how much of herself she saw in this little girl; she was scared of her own thoughts, her own memories and dreams. Remembering what Bellamy said earlier, Sawyer couldn't help but wonder, what happens if the reason that you can't sleep is because you slayed yours?


	6. The One with Atom

The sound of the birds chirping gradually floated in through the stones of the cave, bringing Sawyer to attention. She hadn't slept at all in the night; merely tried, and listened to the sound of Bellamy and Charlotte breathe. For some reason, it brought her comfort inside of the small cave. She hauled herself up from her position next to Charlotte - she had untangled herself from the sleeping girl soon after she'd fallen asleep - and moved one of the stones out of the way, seeing that the acid fog had cleared. Moving the rest of the stones out of the way, she sat in the entrance to the cave, feeling strangely peaceful with the birds chirping, and with Bellamy and Charlotte's audible breathing. She watched the sunrise and decided to let the two sleep more. Sawyer hadn't felt this sort of calm in a long while, and wanted it to last longer. She waited until the sun was almost all the way risen before going and throwing a stone against the wall of the cave. Bellamy and Charlotte jolted awake, immediately at attention. At seeing that it was just Sawyer, Bellamy groaned and stretched.

"Could've done it nicer," he grumbled, yawning. Charlotte was doing the same. Bellamy stared at her once he was done yawning, and she could see that he was still exhausted. He hadn't put on his tough-guy look yet, and Sawyer had to admit that she preferred this one better. "Are you checking me out?"

"You wish," was her retort, and he smirked at her. Charlotte was watching them with a smile on her face.

"You're right." Sawyer was taken aback at his response, and before she could say anything he stood, Charlotte following. "Is the fog cleared?" Sawyer nodded and they all left the cave.

"We should've gone back to camp a while ago," Bellamy told Sawyer and she shrugged. She knew that they should've, but wanted to be at peace and not listen to the bustle of camp longer. She didn't feel bad about it.

"Anybody out here?" Bellamy yelled, looking around. "Jones?"

"We're here!" Jones yelled back, his voice coming from their right. Bellamy immediately set off for it, followed by the two of them. Sawyer visibly saw Bellamy slip back into his leadership position, complete with the hard face that came along with it. They met Jones, Miller, and some girl after a minute.

"Lost you in the stew. Where'd you go?" Bellamy asked them, and Sawyer saw the girl visibly checking out Bellamy, and rolled her eyes. Miller crossed hugged Sawyer before she knew what was happening, and she stiffened, not making a move to hug him back. He let her go, obviously not letting it bother him.

"Thought I'd lost you for a while there, kid," Miller told her. Truth was, she was partially kept up overnight by the thought that Miller had been caught in the fog. She didn't want to admit it, but she'd started to give a damn about him.

"Made it to a cave down there. The hell was that?" Jones asked Bellamy.

"I don't know. Where's Atom?" Jones, Miller and the girl gave Bellamy a panicked look.

"We thought he was with you," Miller told Bellamy, and Bellamy set his jaw.

"We need to find Atom, spread out." they did what Bellamy told them to and fanned out, all heading in the direction back to camp, just spaced out. They'd been walking for a while, all within eyesight of the person next to them, just in case, when Charlotte let out a bloodcurdling scream. Everyone started to run as fast as they could towards where she was searching. Bellamy got there first, and Sawyer was close behind him. The rest of them were still running when Sawyer saw the reason for the screams, and why they were all stopped.

In front of them was Atom, but he was barely Atom anymore. He had spent the night out in the acid fog, and it was obvious that he was in excruciating pain. His skin was almost completely red, and where it wasn't peeling, blisters had formed. His eyes were open, but Sawyer knew that there was no way that he could see. His eyes were almost completely white. His chest was heaving as he was struggling to breathe, and Sawyer could barely imagine how much pain that he was in. She was right; the acid fog was meant to kill them, but slowly. Painfully. Atom was proof of that.

"Son of a bitch. Atom," Bellamy spoke eventually. It seemed like minutes but it must've only been seconds, because the people behind her were barely closer than they were before. Bellamy ran to Atom, dropping to a knee next to his head. He looked like he wanted to touch him to comfort him, but didn't know where to touch, because every part of him was in pain.

"Take Charlotte back to camp," Bellamy commanded Sawyer, and she shook her head. She turned to the three that had just arrived, and had barely caught sight of Atom. They were all staring as well.

"Take her back to camp," she ordered them. They looked skeptical, until Bellamy looked over.

"Now," he commanded, and while she knew that he was telling her to leave, they thought he was telling them to leave. Miller, Jones, and the girl all took Charlotte and led her back to camp, but could barely take their eyes off of Atom. Sawyer could hear Miller say something, and the girl split off with Charlotte, Miller and Jones staying barely out of her line of sight, but she could still hear them. Slightly comforted knowing that Miller was standing a few feet away, she walked forward and dropped to her knees on the other side of Atom. He started breathing heavier. He had turned his eyes towards Bellamy, but there was no way that he could actually see him. It looked like he was trying to speak. Bellamy looked up towards Sawyer, and lowered his head down towards Atom.

"Kill me. Kill me," he was repeating, and then kept struggling to breathe. It was obvious that the talking had strained him. He closed his eyes, arching his back. His chest was heaving with pain. He started coughing, blood bubbling onto his lips. Sawyer didn't know much about medicine, but knew that that meant there was internal bleeding. She couldn't even imagine being in as much pain as Atom was in right then.

"I-I-I can't breathe," he was able to choke out through the blood. Sawyer's chest tightened painfully, and knew that one of them had to kill him. Put him out of his misery, so he wasn't dying slowly. Bellamy had come to the same conclusion, and they were looking at each other; Bellamy looked like he was pleading with her, trying to figure out if she thought there was a way he could live. She shook her head at him.

"Kill me," he muttered again, his face contorted in agony. Sawyer had enough. She looked around and saw Atom's knife lying next to his body, and so did Bellamy. Bellamy grabbed it and gripped it tightly, staring at Atom.

"Bellamy, please," he choked out again. Bellamy was just staring at him in shock, and Sawyer was staring at Bellamy. Her mind flashed back to the four men that she had killed, and knew. She knew that Bellamy couldn't kill Atom. The look on his face proved it. Atom started coughing again. Bellamy couldn't take his eyes off of Atom, and Sawyer reached out to grab the knife. When she touched it, Bellamy jerked his hand away from her.

"No," he told her, and she shook her head.

"Let me do it," her voice was so quiet that she could barely hear it over the sound of Atom's breathing, and he looked at her pleadingly once more. He looked like he was on the verge of crying, and shook his head.

"I have to do it," he looked down at Atom. "I have to."

"You're not a killer," she told him, and she knew that it was true by the look on his face. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve, and he looked back up at her.

"I suppose you are?" he choked out, and Sawyer tried not to let any emotion show on her face.

"Just give me the knife," she demanded, and he shook his head again.

"I can't do it," he muttered. Atom had started chanting, 'kill me' again.

"I can," she told him, and he looked at her with a defeated look. She knew that he was going to question her later, but she figured that doing this was worth it. She already had nightmares, and Atom appearing in them wouldn't change anything. Bellamy didn't need to have his friend's blood on his hands. Sawyer reached out, and Bellamy let her take the blade out of his hand this time. Bellamy was staring at Sawyer as she took a deep breath, and she knew that her hand was trembling, but ignored it. She leaned forward and examined Atom's neck. It was almost impossible to find the vein that she knew was there, that would let him bleed out the quickest, but when she found it, she took a deep breath in. She gently slid the knife into his neck, and saw Bellamy flinch out of the corner of her eye at the sound that it made. Withdrawing the knife, she saw the blood from Atom's neck begin to pour out, and she knew that she'd found the vein. Within seconds, he had stopped struggling for breath, and Sawyer knew that her body count had just been raised to five.

She rocked back, sitting down and pulled her knees up to her chest, staring at the knife in her hand, coated with Atom's blood. After staring at it for a minute, and Bellamy staring at her, she took it and threw it at the nearest tree. It didn't even come close to sticking in, just hitting it and it falling to the ground, but she didn't care. Wrapping her arms around herself, Sawyer stared at Atom's lifeless body. Footsteps came up behind them, and Sawyer looked up to find Miller and Jones. They were staring at Atom's body, and then at Sawyer's hands, which she only just realized had his blood on them. Bellamy cleared his throat.

"We need to bring him back to camp," he said, and Miller and Jones snapped their eyes back towards Bellamy. They nodded, and Jones proceeded to cover his face with his jacket before the two of them lifted him up and began to carry him off. Bellamy walked over to her and held out his hand for her to take. Sawyer wiped her hands off on the grass, but his blood had already stained them. She took his hand anyways and he pulled her up before pulling her into a hug. She didn't stiffen due to the shock of Atom's blood still on her hands, but didn't pull away. She told herself that it was more of his comfort than hers, and he let go of her after a minute. They exchanged a look and he took off running, catching up with Jones and Miller.

Sawyer took off walking in the opposite direction. She started walking in the direction that she'd gone several times before when she couldn't sleep, knowing that she couldn't go back to camp. Not yet, not when they would be mourning Atom, whom she had just killed. Granted, it was a mercy killing, but his blood was still physically on her hands. She eventually saw a break in the thick forest. Walking through it, she found a small clearing with a lake in it. It wasn't large enough for it to be intimidating, but not small enough to where she would freely walk across it. Sawyer walked onto the rocks that were surrounding the water, and she plunged her hands into it, scrubbing them of his blood.

Sawyer knew in the back of her mind that the blood was already off of her hands, but she kept scrubbing them to the point where they were raw and she would feel that there were wounds from her own nails on her hands. She eventually stopped, collapsing back onto the rock. Lying on the rock, she was staring into the sky, trying not to think about what had just transpired. The sky lit up with oranges, reds and purples. Just that morning she found peace in staring at the sky, but now she didn't find any whatsoever. She felt guilt, remorse.

What if she hadn't stopped Bellamy from running after Atom? What if he hadn't fallen, or if she had noticed that he had tripped and grabbed him before it was too late? What if they'd pulled him in with them? Her mind was spinning with 'what if's. She lied there until the sky was black, and the stars came out. She found that they were significantly prettier when staring at them from the ground, because she could only see them some of the time. She watched the moon travel, and it was a long time before she'd heard rustling in the bushes. Someone broke through, and she could hear their sobs. Sawyer had to make a quick decision on if she should let them know she was there or not, and she decided to. Clearing her throat, the person spun towards her, and she saw that it was Octavia.

"Why are you here?" Octavia asked her, wiping her face. Sawyer just stared at her, not having the energy to say anything. Two days of no sleep was catching up to her. Pulling herself up, she sat so a rock was against her back. Octavia shook her head and went to sit next to Sawyer.

"Atom's dead," Octavia told her, and Sawyer nodded. She knew. She also knew that Octavia had an interest in him, which is likely why she was sobbing. And deduced that she was pissed off at her brother, which is why she was here, and not at camp. "He was the first person who actually liked me, and Bellamy ruined that, and now he's gone." Octavia continued to cry, and Sawyer awkwardly sat there, not knowing what to do. Octavia just continued to cry, not expecting Sawyer to really say anything.

"I just wanted to say goodbye," Octavia said through her tears, and Sawyer understood why she was so mad at Bellamy. She probably would be mad at Sawyer, too, if she knew that Sawyer was the one to actually kill him, but chose once more not to say anything. Octavia lied down where Sawyer was lying previously, staring at the stars like she was. The rock was big enough for both of them, so Sawyer did the same. Octavia stopped sobbing, and tears were silently streaming down her face. Sawyer didn't know when, but she fell asleep lying on the rock.

Sawyer didn't know how long she'd been asleep, but it was long enough to have a nightmare. She sat up straight, her mind flashing with images of Atom. He'd joined the pile of bodies that was in that nightmare, but the bodies kept piling up in this one. It wasn't a flashback, almost an omen. She saw Bellamy. Octavia. Miller. Charlotte. Her parents. Everyone that she knew was piled up, bloody, and she knew that she killed them. She looked and saw Octavia still lying next to her, fast asleep with tear tracks dried on her face. Sawyer stared at Octavia until it was obvious that she was breathing, and was assured that it was only a nightmare. Splashing water on her face, she lied back down and Octavia moved closer next to her, not quite touching her, but almost. Sawyer fell asleep once more to the sound of Octavia's easy breathing, and figured that she'd deal with the girl's sorrow the next day.


	7. The One with Well's Death

Sawyer awoke the next day when Octavia began to move. At some point during the night, the younger girl had curled up into Sawyer, using her shoulder as a pillow. Octavia was moving, stretching. Sawyer looked up to see the different shades of pinks spreading across the sky, and that, combined with the scenery around her, calmed her heartbeat from her nightmare quickly. She stood up and stretched, and Octavia followed her after a minute, looking surprised that it was daytime.

"You make a comfy pillow," Octavia told her, and Sawyer just nodded at her. Guilt spread through her again when Octavia splashed water on her face to get rid of the tear tracks. Sawyer masked the guilt, numbness spreading through her mind. She didn't need to feel guilty, but certainly didn't deserve to be happy.

"Let's go back to camp," Sawyer told her, and Octavia nodded in agreement. They walked for a bit in silence, until Octavia spoke up.

"I'm Octavia."

"Sawyer." Octavia gave her a strange look from the side, and Sawyer furrowed her eyebrows.

" _You're_ Sawyer?" Octavia asked, and Sawyer nodded. "Huh. You're not as bitchy as people say that you are." Sawyer smirked at the comment; apparently things had been spreading about her. She barely ever talked to people, and apparently that translated to her being a bitch. She was fine with that reputation if it meant that random people weren't approaching her. They kept walking in silence for a bit more, before Octavia broke it again.

"Why were you out there?" Sawyer just stared at her, and Octavia shrunk back a bit, and didn't say anything more, not pressing on the topic, which Sawyer was completely fine with. She didn't feel like telling Octavia that she's the one who stabbed her boyfriend in the neck. The birds were chirping and the two were dodging sticks, trying not to make it sound like they were a stampede going through the forest. Until Octavia broke the silence. Again.

"I heard you're good with a knife." alright, this kind of question Sawyer could actually deal with. She shrugged, and Octavia halted. "I want you to teach me." Sawyer looked at her for a moment with a raised eyebrow.

"Ask your brother." Octavia scoffed.

"My brother would laugh in my face. I want you to teach me. I saw you throw the knife the other day, and I want to do that." Octavia was staring at her, and Sawyer knew that she wouldn't move until Sawyer agreed, so she shrugged.

"As long as your brother won't kill me." Octavia laughed loudly, and looked happy.

"He wouldn't kill you, he's in love with you," Octavia told her with a grin on her face, and Sawyer rolled her eyes.

"Let's go," Sawyer said while starting to walk again, and Octavia walked with a bounce in her step.

"I'm serious! He doesn't say it, of course. And he does sleep with other girls. Like a few others. But he looks at you basically all the time, with this look on his face, and I'm pretty sure that means that he's in love with you. He may be an asshole, but he's my brother, and I want him to be happy," Octavia rambled, and Sawyer blatantly ignored her. It didn't matter what Octavia told her; she wasn't going to react. She'd told herself from the beginning to not show emotions, to not show weakness. She'd already begun to do that by making friends with people, and she refused to do anything more. Upon the realization that Sawyer wasn't going to say anything, Octavia stopped talking, and surprisingly didn't say anything until they got back to camp. When they came within sight, the sun was still barely in the sky, and they caught sight of one of the people on guard.

"Bellamy!" the guard yelled, and Octavia scowled at him. Within seconds, Bellamy was running out and hugged Octavia, who stood there for a few seconds before begrudgingly hugging him back.

"Where were you all night? I thought you were dead," he sounded like a mixture of pissed off and relieved, and Sawyer decided that she really didn't want to be a part of that conversation. She went to walk around the two of them before Bellamy held out his hand, not looking at her. "Stay."

"Bell, I'm fine. I was with Sawyer," she tried to ease his irritation, but he shook his head, looking like he was trying to keep his face level now.

"It's irresponsible, O. Being with Sawyer doesn't make it any more responsible. If anything, it's more reckless." Sawyer glared at him, and he still didn't look at her.

"How's Jasper?" Octavia asked suddenly, and Sawyer wondered if she knew that she wasn't being subtle at all, trying to get away from him. Bellamy shook his head.

"No, you're not getting out of this. And you-" he turned to face Sawyer. "Where the hell did you go? I thought you were following me back to camp." Sawyer shrugged, and Bellamy looked more irritated at them. "What happened if a Grounder found you, huh? What would've happened then?"

"But they didn't, Bell," Octavia tried to have a soothing voice. "We're fine, nothing happened." she stood up on her toes and kissed Bellamy's cheek before walking away, gesturing for Sawyer to do the same. Sawyer started walking to follow her, hoping to find Miller, and Bellamy sighed. She saw him run his hand through his hair out of the corner of her eye.

"Sawyer, we need to-" he sounded exhausted, but he was cut off by someone's scream. She snapped her eyes to him and Bellamy took off running. Sawyer sighed and ran after him, wanting to know what he needed to talk to her about. Bellamy made it there first - of course, she was constantly reminded about how he was a foot and a half taller than she is - and was asking the person who screamed what was wrong. It was some girl, and she gestured to something on the ground. Sawyer caught up and looked, seeing a body on the ground. It was a male, and he had dark skin - _no._ It wasn't Miller. There was no way that it was Miller.

Right?

Despite how much he annoyed her most of the time, she would rather see almost anybody dead on the ground than Miller. He was the first person to be nice to her, the first person in years to show her any sort of kindness. He'd insisted on her sleeping next to him because he didn't want her to be lonely, because he knew that she hadn't talked with anybody besides him. He brushed off a girl who was flirting with him because he didn't want her to be alone. There was no way that it could be Miller.

"Harper, go get Clarke," he ordered her, and she nodded, running away. Bellamy was staring at the body on the ground for a minute before he grabbed it and pulled on his shoulder, and Sawyer let out a sigh of relief that thankfully Bellamy didn't hear. It wasn't Miller - it was Wells, the mini-Chancellor. Bellamy ran his hand through his hair as he stared at Wells, and Sawyer could see confliction on his face. Sawyer admitted to herself that if anyone were to die, she would be the least upset about him.

"I thought it was Miller," Bellamy muttered, and Sawyer nodded in agreement. After a minute of standing there, Clarke ran towards them.

"What's going on? Harper - oh." Clarke stopped dead in her tracks, and sunk down on her knees next to Wells' body. She didn't do anything other than stare. There were no tears, no sobbing, no words - nothing. It was so awkward, it was almost painful to watch for Sawyer. She had no idea what to do, and shifted her weight from one leg to the other, feeling restless. Bellamy cleared his throat, and Clarke looked at him.

"Grounders," he said gruffly, and Clarke nodded her head. She went back to staring at his body. Sawyer looked at Bellamy, who was also looking around uncomfortably.

"Get Miller, Murphy, and Finn. Planning tent," Bellamy told her, and she silently thanked him for giving her an out from the situation. She didn't think he had an idea on how to handle the silent grieving woman in front of him, but he'd definitely do it better than her. Sawyer walked away quickly, and Octavia was waiting just a bit away.

"He was totally staring at your ass as you walked away," Octavia told her, falling in step with Sawyer; it was obvious that Octavia didn't care much about his death either. She was glad she wasn't alone in it. She ignored Octavia pointedly, and started trying to find the people she was told. Not being able to see over anybody's head, she found a stump to stand on top of, and that barely helped. There weren't many people awake, so it should've been relatively easy to find them. Octavia was staring at her and smirking, knowing what she was trying to do. Sawyer glared at her, and saw Miller still laying down. Sawyer jumped down and weaved through the crowd, finding Miller laying down next to some girl, who was talking quickly. She was just glad that they still had their clothes on.

Sawyer nudged him with her foot. "Planning tent." Miller jumped, wiping the sleep out of his eyes. It was obvious that he'd just woken up, and wasn't awake quite yet. Sawyer wondered if the girl knew that Miller wasn't listening to anything she was saying. The girl looked at Sawyer annoyed, and Sawyer just stared at her.

"Excuse you, we were talking," the girl told Sawyer, and Sawyer just rose an eyebrow.

"You're excused." she looked back to Miller, ignoring the way that the girl was staring at her like she wanted to kill her. "Now."

"Ay ay, boss," Miller mock saluted her before standing up and stretching before walking in the general direction of the planning tent, the girl standing at the same time. Sawyer realized that she'd have to find another place to gain a height advantage and was instantly annoyed, running a hand through her hair. _Oh god, I'm turning into Bellamy_ , she thought after she did his characteristic annoyed or stressed movement. When she went to walk away, the girl grabbed her arm tightly. When Sawyer tried to move out of it, she grabbed it harder.

"Why do you have to be such a bitch?" the girl asked, and Sawyer's irritation level increased tenfold.

"Let me go, now," she ordered and the girl laughed.

"You don't scare me." Sawyer turned quickly and slammed her fist into the girl's nose, causing her to let go of her arm quickly. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!" she screamed, holding her nose. It was bleeding slightly, but Sawyer hadn't put enough force behind it to cause any real damage. Sawyer didn't bother responding to the girl, just continued to walk away, ignoring her threat of "payback". She didn't care about the girl, she didn't care about anything at the moment. The numbness she felt after her nightmare hadn't faded in the slightest. Sawyer jumped on top of another stump, but it was easy to find Murphy and Finn. The girl and her had drawn some attention when she punched her, and where there is a fight, there is Murphy and Finn.

"Spacewalker, planning tent," she said as she walked by, and Finn just stared at her. "Now." Sawyer was irritated by the fact that nobody wanted to listen to her; she knew she wasn't exactly threatening, but she didn't go around demanding that people go to the planning tent on a regular basis. She walked up to Murphy, who was standing with a couple of other people, one of whom was Mbege. It always was.

"Murphy. Let's go," she said, gesturing towards the planning tent.

"Why?" he questioned, and one of the guys made a sex joke. Teenage boys, surprise surprise.

"Just fucking follow me." the annoyance in her voice was evident, and Murphy shrugged, following her towards the planning tent. It was only then that she realized that Octavia was tagging along the entire time, and just let her follow them into the planning tent. Bellamy and Clarke weren't in it yet, so Finn was standing awkwardly on one side with Miller on the other. Sawyer walked in and stood by Miller, Octavia in between Finn and her, and Murphy on the edge of the tent behind her.

"You sure know how to pick 'em, Miller," Octavia remarked, breaking the silence and smirking at Miller. He got a look of confusion, his brows furrowing.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about that girl you were flirting with. Insane. Shorty here had to punch her to make her let go of her," Octavia grinned, and Sawyer glared at the use of "shorty". Octavia was the second person to give her the nickname, and Murphy just smirked at it. Or at the entire situation.

"Why did you punch someone?" Bellamy asked as he walked in, Clarke right behind him.

"Miller was flirting with a psycho," Murphy clarified, and Bellamy shrugged. Bellamy took the head of the table while Finn rushed towards Clarke, wrapping his arms around her. Sawyer wanted to gag at the display of affection; Octavia did it for her, and smirked at Sawyer. Bellamy ignored the entire situation, including why Octavia was in the tent when he didn't request her to be. His sister would do what she pleased, and he certainly wasn't currently in the position to say anything to upset her.

"Wells is dead," Bellamy said point-blank, reminding Sawyer of why she gathered people in the first place. Murphy's eyebrows shot up, Finn and Octavia looked shocked, and Miller looked confused.

"Chancellor?" Miller asked through a yawn, crossing his arms.

"Yeah, chancellor," Bellamy affirmed, and Clarke glared sharply at Miller, who ignored her. "He was killed right outside of the wall. Grounders. We need to set up a taskforce, the wall needs to come up quicker, patrols more active." Bellamy kept talking about what they needed to do, and Sawyer was zoning out, contemplating the idea that a Grounder came close enough to kill Wells but left the rest of them alone. Why? Was it a warning of some sort?

"Sawyer," Miller said, snapping her out of it. She looked around, and everyone was staring at her.

"Nice to see you're paying attention," Finn remarked, and Sawyer rolled her eyes, Bellamy giving her a warning look to pay attention.

"And we cannot leave at night," Bellamy told her, and then started telling the rest of the group the importance of this, aiming it specifically at her and Octavia. She just continued to zone out, and went back to her previous train of thought. Was it a warning from the Grounders? Then she had a thought that she should've thought about before - what if it wasn't?

What were the odds that a Grounder would just to happen to kill the most hated person in camp? The person that everybody wanted dead? Including the princess, despite how torn up she looks now? Remorse about him dying when she hated him, most likely. But who would hate him enough to kill him? Murphy would fight him, yes, and he'd been gaining notoriety in the camp for being an all around asshole, but she couldn't see him quietly killing Wells. He would've already made a big deal about it, "whatever the hell we want" and all that. And why only kill him now?

Everyone was filing out, apparently Bellamy had finally finished talking. She waited for everybody else to leave to talk to Bellamy, giving Miller a nod that it was alright to go. He already looked like he wanted to go back to sleep anyway. Octavia winked at her on the way out, saying something about checking on Jasper. Goggle kid, right - she'd forgotten about him, with all of the death and all. Guess he was still alive. Imagine that.

"Do I want to know?" Bellamy asked when Octavia left, and Sawyer shook her head. She walked closer to Bellamy so she could talk quieter.

"What are the odds that a Grounder killed him?" Bellamy looked at her for a moment skeptically, before sighing and running his hand through his hair.

"I don't know." that was the answer that Sawyer was expecting, more or less.

"They just so happen to kill the most infamous person in the group?" his leader facade dropped, and he looked exhausted suddenly. She realized that she wasn't the only person who was thinking about it. The rest seemed to have accepted it, but she didn't. She didn't trust anybody enough in the camp to not think about it.

"I realize, Sawyer. But who would kill him? Who hated him enough to kill him?" Sawyer scoffed. "With Adam dying yesterday and him dying today, we need the camp united, now more than ever."

"It'd be easier to ask who liked him. His father locked up all of us, killed some of our parents-" Sawyer stopped talking and froze. She slammed her fist down on the table next to her. "Shit."

"What?" he asked hastily, to no reply. Sawyer sped out of the tent and he followed closely behind her.

"Are you planning on explaining?" she didn't say anything, just kept looking around. She wanted to be wrong, so desperately to be wrong. She weaved through the camp, knowing that Bellamy would be following her. Charlotte was standing on the edge of camp, her eyes rimmed slightly red. She looked incredibly alarmed by every small soung, and even moreso when Sawyer grabbed her arm and pulled her outside of the camp.

"What are you-" Charlotte started, but Sawyer quickly interrupted.

"Walk."

"You can't be serious-" Bellamy started in also, irritating Sawyer further.

"Stop. Talking." she could practically feel his frustration towards her radiating off of him, since she couldn't see his face, but he followed her anyways. She retraced her steps from the night before, and hoped that they would continue to follow her. Leading them to the lake that her and Octavia had slept at, she stopped and waited for them.

"How do you know where this is?" Bellamy asked her, looking around at the lake with the same expression that she and Octavia had, most likely. The seclusion was exactly what she wanted.

"I don't sleep," was her answer. She'd been there several times before, on nighttime escapades. Bellamy looked like he wanted to start in on her for not staying in the camp when Sawyer pointedly looked to Charlotte, and he realized the more pressing matter at hand. She was looking confused at both of them.

"What's going on?" her voice was as quiet as ever.

"You killed Wells," Sawyer stated simply, and Bellamy looked at her incredulously. She ignored that look and focused on Charlotte, whose eyes grew.

"No I didn't-" her voice got louder and higher pitched. Sawyer didn't say anything, only stared at her, and she closed her mouth in the middle of her sentence, shifting uncomfortably and growing antsy.

"Look, this is-" Bellamy started to say, before Charlotte interrupted him.

"I'm sorry," she pleaded. "I just wanted to sleep." she sounded guilty and ashamed. Sawyer swore, turning and running her hand through her hair. She wanted so badly to be wrong, wanted Charlotte to not be like her. She had so much innocence left in her, and she didn't want her to lose it, and now the look in her eyes was the same look as when she was first arrested. Someone whose world just altered dramatically. Someone who just had their innocence stolen from them completely.

Sawyer now vaguely understood why her parents hated her so much for killing the guardsmen. Sawyer killed the person that she used to be when she killed them. Charlotte killed the person that she was before when she killed Wells. The girl in front of her wasn't the same girl as yesterday morning, that she listened to breathe while she slept and watched Bellamy comfort as she had nightmares.

"What do you mean, you 'just wanted to sleep'?" Bellamy spoke up after a moment, and Sawyer saw that he had the same look on his face that she probably had on hers. Surprised, disappointed, ashamed. _Emotions are weak._ Sawyer wiped her face clean. Charlotte was still staring at the ground, and didn't respond. "Charlotte."

"I was slaying my demons, like you told me." she sounded so disappointed in herself that Sawyer couldn't help but feel bad for the child - maybe there was still a way she could save her. Maybe.

"That's not what I meant, Charlotte. You can't kill people to solve your problems," Bellamy sounded exhausted once more. Sawyer wondered if he saw Octavia in Charlotte like she saw herself in her.

"I didn't want to have nightmares anymore. His dad killed my parents," Charlotte was trying to explain, trying to make him understand so desperately.

"What about your nightmares about killing him?" Sawyer interjected and Charlotte's eyes snapped to her. Her eyes were huge; it looked like the realization of that just dawned on her. She let out a sob, her eyes filled with tears. Sawyer felt the urge to hug her, which took her by surprise.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she was repeating through her sobs, and Bellamy looked at Sawyer. They were both trying to figure out what to do next. Bellamy sighed, taking Charlotte into his arms. The three of them stood in silence other than Charlotte's sobbing. Bellamy and Sawyer were completely conflicted about what to do next, but both of them knew deep down what they would do. The girl had taken root in both of their hearts, surprisingly. When Charlotte had calmed down, they left her and walked a bit away to talk to each other alone.

"What should we do?" Bellamy asked her, visibly torn up. He ran his hand through his hair - something that he was doing more frequently as the days went on. They stood there for a moment before Sawyer looked up at his eyes.

"We both know." she waited for Bellamy to disagree with her, but he didn't.

"Nobody has to know?" Bellamy asked her, and she nodded. They walked back towards her.

"We're not going to tell anybody-" Bellamy started saying, making Charlotte look genuinely surprised. She launched herself at the closest person, which happened to be Sawyer. She wrapped her arms around Sawyer tightly and Sawyer stiffened. Bellamy gave her an extremely strange look at that - she couldn't hug a kid? - and she awkwardly patted Charlotte on the back before Charlotte let go.

"If you kill someone else, or try to kill someone else, or tell anybody what you did, we're going to have a problem. Got it?" Bellamy asked Charlotte in his authoritative voice, causing Charlotte to be taken aback, since he'd never used that voice with her before. She got over her surprise and nodded eagerly.

"I won't, I promise," she said, and she looked happy for a second, but then her face fell completely. They stood there until Bellamy suggested that they go back to camp. They walked back in near silence, Charlotte's spirits being lifted slightly by the fact they weren't going to do anything to her, but guilty and ashamed about the fact that she'd killed Wells, and rightfully so. _Now she's going to have nightmares about killing him, and see his dead body in her dreams every night. Does she not realize that can be worse?_ She was caught up in her thoughts, and almost didn't realize when they'd made it back to camp. Charlotte hugged her again, and Sawyer attempted to return it before she'd hugged Bellamy, who looked just as awkward.

"You know, you guys are like my parents," Charlotte declared before turning around and going into the camp. Sawyer laughed slightly, and Bellamy looked at her in mild surprise. She gave him a strange look.

"What?"

"Is that the first time you've laughed since we came down here?" Sawyer thought for a minute, then shrugged in agreement. "Do it more." he locked eyes with her and walked backwards, slightly smiling before turning around and going into camp. She rolled her eyes as he took up his role as leader immediately, snapping at somebody.


	8. The One with the Training

**A/N I struggled writing this chapter, honestly. I have chapters written up to 16, but accessory chapters that don't explicitly follow the story need to be added, and the next chapter is long. So I hope you enjoy this little one, so that I can bring Sawyer back around to the colder person I originally wanted her to be.**

Charlotte refused to go near Sawyer.

Sawyer knew that it was intentional, but she couldn't say that she cared much. Now, more than ever, was the time to live by the motto that caring was weak. Emotions were weak. She'd let herself get too close to Charlotte, and to the Blakes, and she'd wound up ultimately disappointed overall. She was disappointed in Charlotte, because of what she'd done to Wells, and because of her lack of foresight. She was disappointed in Bellamy, because of the way that he could flip from being a sweet older brother type to Charlotte and being nice to her, and then being an ass to everyone else. She was disappointed in Octavia, because she was being a child about the entire situation with Bellamy. And most of all, she was disappointed in herself for caring enough to get disappointed in everyone else.

The lake became her sanctuary, although the next few days were going surprisingly peacefully. When she wasn't doing her share by either hunting or helping build the fence, she was at the lake. Bellamy saw her leave every night and made eye contact with her as she was leaving, but he knew that it wasn't worth it to try to keep her inside of the makeshift boundaries of the camp. It wasn't the most effective system, but it had its benefit. She was building muscle with the distance she was walking twice a day, and she needed that more than anything; everyone at camp was losing weight quickly. They didn't have enough food to eat comfortably, but enough to tide them over, something that a lot of campers were having troubles with. It didn't help that they didn't drink enough water, so they were always exhausted. Octavia was growing more restless and irritated every day; it was clear that the girl was tired of being confined, and being surrounded by an endless world was driving her crazy. A few days after the incident with Charlotte, Octavia had followed Sawyer down to the lake.

"It's a lot prettier when you're not crying because your brother killed your boyfriend," Octavia said to her, sitting on the rock below where Sawyer was sitting. She was sitting on a tall shelf that the rocks had made, gazing out at the stars and the moon reflecting off of the lake. Nodding in agreement, the two relapsed into comfortable silence. At the lake was the only time that Sawyer had seen Octavia stop moving, except for when she's asleep. Sawyer felt guilt when Octavia said that Bellamy killed Atom, but chose not to say anything; the girl would have been angry at Bellamy anyway, and the last thing Sawyer needed was another thing on her hands. Atom still haunted her dreams, as did the guards.

She was tired. Octavia stayed and slept, and Sawyer tried to get sleep. Her back ached and was being rubbed raw from tossing and turning on the rocks every night, but she refused to sleep at the campsite; the less she was around the others, the better. She tried to tell herself that she would leave as soon as she had the skillset to leave and be on her own, but she knew herself better than that. Eventually, she faded into sleep, only to be jolted awake. It was the same nightmare that woke her up almost every night; Atom and the guards were just staring at her. Standing there, with completely blank looks in their eyes. Then, all of a sudden, they were bleeding. Atom was bleeding from the neck, and the guards were bleeding from various places, but all of which from where she'd stabbed them; Atom dropped first, since his had been most fatal, then the other ones dropped in the order in which she'd killed them. Mbege dropped last, which Sawyer felt a sick satisfaction about, since he'd been the one to distract her and initiate the entire situation. It was getting old, and it was taking its toll on her. There was only so long that she could go without sleep, and she was reaching her limit. In solitary, she'd had the entire day to sleep; it didn't matter, she could fade in and out as she pleased. She started it by waking up screaming and crying, and now she was used to it, and only got a racing heart and the feeling of panic until she realized that it wasn't real. On the ground, she had a duty during the day. She couldn't afford to sleep, although she had the thought that if she stayed, no one would notice, nor care. Climbing down from the rocks, she tried to avoid jostling Octavia. Her bare feet sank into the deep sand as she sat down and put her head in her arms, falling back asleep as she watched the stars dance on the ripples in the water and the trees sway.

"Sawyer." she woke up to Octavia touching her arm and jolted up, away from her touch. Octavia frowned and looked hurt for a minute. "We should be getting back to camp." She spoke softer that time, and Sawyer pushed herself up off of the sand and wiped it off of her clothes. Sawyer ran her hand through her hair, detangling it as they started walking, but not before she'd caught a glimpse of the colors of the sunrise reflecting off of the lake. It really was the best place on the ground she'd seen. While they were walking, Sawyer examined Octavia. The ground changed her the most out of everybody so far. She was the most confident by far, and friendly but also harsh and abrasive. It was amazing how much she already looked like she belonged on the ground. Both of the Blakes looked like they were born and raised on the ground, with their naturally tan skin and dark hair.

"About training me…" Octavia started, looking at Sawyer with pleading eyes. Sawyer started to say no, but thought about it. What was wrong with training Octavia? The most that could happen would be that she accidentally gives herself a small cut. Or stabs someone on accident. Or on purpose. Sawyer didn't really care. She nodded in agreement, and Octavia's face lit up. They changed pace, Sawyer leading her to the clearing where Miller taught her how to throw a knife.

"You have a knife?" Sawyer asked her, and she nodded. Octavia took it out and Sawyer immediately adjusted her grip on it. "Don't be scared of it, or you'll only hurt yourself." Octavia nodded, listening closely to everything that she was saying. Sawyer demonstrated how to throw it, and the knife dug deep into the tree where she threw, hitting her mark exactly. Octavia's eyes widened, and she looked excited to try. The first time she threw, it hit the tree weakly, way below where Sawyer's was.

The next few hours was Octavia throwing the knife, Sawyer giving her subtle instructions, and Octavia's arm getting steadily more exhausted, but enduring still. When she finally got the knife to stick, she cheered, and Sawyer smiled a little bit before dropping it. _Feelings are weak. You are not weak,_ she told herself.

"I did it!"

"I'm going back to camp," Sawyer told her and Octavia nodded, going to retrieve her knife from the tree. Sawyer yanked hers out, sliding it back where it belonged. They walked back in silence, which Sawyer was grateful for. When they were almost back at camp, she stopped.

"Don't tell your brother," she warned before walking away, knowing that it would irritate Octavia for her to say it. She heard her protest, something about how Bellamy didn't have any control over her, but Sawyer ignored it. Frankly, she just didn't care if Bellamy knew, but didn't feel like being yelled at by him. As they were walking up, Miller was the one on duty who caught sight of them. He jogged up to meet them.

"You're late." Miller told them, and Octavia cocked her eyebrow.

"Do I look like I give any fucks?"

"I don't fucking care, Octavia, but it's my ass on the line if you get hurt. Go inside and stop being a child," Miller ordered of her, and she glared at him. Sawyer sidestepped them and walked into the camp, not caring about what they were talking about, jumping straight into work, so she missed the rest of their conversation. She still wasn't strong enough to lift the logs, but she had become adept at typing the logs securely together.

"I'm not a child! You can't tell me what to do just because my brother gave you the slightest bit of power." Octavia smirked. "He'd take it away in a heartbeat if he saw the way that you look at her."

"Don't you fucking dare, Octavia," Miller warned her, breaking his eyes away from Sawyer, where he'd watched her walk into the camp. Octavia winked at him, knowing that she'd hit a nerve. She'd been growing quite good at that. "Get into camp." She rolled her eyes and walked into camp, going into the dropship to find something to help Clarke with. Miller stayed standing in the same place and groaned, running his hands over his face.

The wall was being built at a fast rate, everybody living in fear of the Grounders. It assured Sawyer that she and Bellamy had done the right thing by not telling the camp what Charlotte had done. After Miller was done with his guard duty, he went over to work by Sawyer, like he did most days. Miller gave her the widest grin that he could manage, which caused Sawyer to smile slightly. No matter how much she didn't want to get attached to anybody, and how much she tried to convince herself to shut him out, she held a soft spot for Miller. It irritated her to no end, but she couldn't help it, no matter how much she tried to shut him out, and he knew it.

"How's it going over here, shorty?" he asked her, crouching down next to her and she rolled her eyes, focusing on the logs. He stood up and took over for the guy that was standing next to her, holding it in place.

"Don't call me short." Miller smirked at her and waited until she was done tying the logs together to grab a log that was on the ground, gesturing for another guy to help pick it up.

"What were you doing with Octavia?" Miller tried asking her and she cocked an eyebrow at him. She didn't reply, only turning her attention back to the logs, and he huffed. "Fine, don't tell me. But Blake will be pissed if he finds out you kept Octavia out of the camp for a night."

"Are you threatening me, Miller?" she stopped tying and the guy holding the other end of the log groaned.

"Just tye the fucking log already."

"Shut the fuck up, Nick," Miller snapped, but Sawyer went back to holding the log. They went that way until it was time to stop for the night. They were sitting around the fire when she looked at Miller suddenly.

"Teach me how to fight." Miller looked at her strangely, taking a bite of his food.

"Why?" he asked with his mouth full.

"I want to fight. Your father was in the guard. You know how to fight," she talked to him like he was an idiot, and he laughed at her.

"I'm terrified of what you'll do if you actually know how to fight," he admitted and she rose her eyebrows at him.

"Fine, I'll ask Bellamy," she went to stand up, causing Miller to talk quickly.

"Yes, I'll teach you how to fight." Sawyer smirked at him and Miller shoveled another bite of food into his mouth, avoiding saying anything else.

"Let's go." Sawyer said to him, and he looked at her miserably.

"I can't finish my food?!" he stared down at his food like he was being told he would never be able to eat again, and she rolled her eyes. She'd finished 5 minutes prior, the man was the slowest eater that she'd ever met.

"Finish your food, then." Sawyer sat there as he ate. And stared at him. And stared. She saw him gradually becoming more self conscious and antsy.

"Stop staring at me, Sawyer!" Miller complained to her, and she didn't react. She just continued to stare at him and he pouted slightly, before finishing the rest of his food quickly. "Fine. I'm done."

"Fucking _finally._ "

"Overdramatic bitch." Miller jumped up and they left together, walking toward the clearing where she'd taught Octavia how to throw the knife earlier, and where he taught her how to throw her knife. They broke through the clearing that she learned how to throw her knife in. He started showing her basic moves and techniques, like how to avoid hurting herself when punching someone, and how to use her own height to her advantage.

"You're a natural, kid," he used her old nickname, causing her to scowl at them. "Square up." she got into the stance that he'd shown her, and when he tried to throw an easy punch that she knew how to block, she flinched violently.

"No, that's it," Miller put his arms down. "We're not doing this."

"Miller," she started, and he shook his head.

"I'm not doing it, I'm not fighting with you."

"Fight me," she ordered him, and he shook his head again. " _Miller_."

"Absolutely not, you flinched like you thought I was going to kill you!" Miller hadn't figured out why she'd gotten arrested and she still hadn't told him, so he had no idea.

"I can do this," she reassured him, and herself. She was determined. She wouldn't be helpless anymore. Miller stared at her for a minute before he sighed.

"Fine, fine." he got into position again, trying it again, and Sawyer tried to stop herself from flinching. They just went through basic things that night. She felt like she had to do it. They continued in that way, working during the day and practicing fighting at night. She could take him down by the third day, even if he was going easy on her, but she was focusing intently on everything she was doing, and soon it became muscle memory. Sawyer even started staying in the camp, being too tired to walk back to the lake. Miller had put up a tent for her earlier, even though she hadn't been staying in it, he kept other people out from taking it over. She collapsed into bed each night, and decided that she might end up liking staying in camp. The constant noise of people moving around was actually comforting, and she took over guard duty occasionally.

"That's it, I can't teach you anymore," Miller declared. "You're going to kill me!" his overdramatic tendencies were amusing to her, and she found herself smiling at him.

"You stopped smiling," he observed as they were walking back to the camp. "And talking. Why?" Sawyer looked at him, surprised that he'd noticed. She waited a second before she shrugged, not wanting to explain anything to him.

"Start again, I miss it," he admitted to her and she looked at him curiously. After a second he shook his head. "Nevermind." They walked into camp and went their separate ways, him towards his friends that were relaxing by the fire, and she just went to bed. Miller learned quickly that trying to get her to hang out with them was a lost cause; she tried once and sat there uncomfortably for a while while they laughed and joked around before she left.

While they were training, she was growing more skeptical of Charlotte as the days went on, and she could tell that Bellamy was also. Even without talking, she caught him watching Charlotte. Sawyer figured that it wouldn't be long before she either ran away, or confessed. She was surprised that she'd lasted over a week, the guilt building up inside of her almost boiling over. Charlotte was jumpy all of the time and wouldn't look anybody in the eyes anymore. It was clear as day to Sawyer. It was the way that she looked years ago, before she broke completely.

 _Sawyer was in the pathetically small bathrooms that they had, containing a toilet, sink, mirror, and a shower. It was only a month after she'd been locked up, when she still had two guards constantly. It eventually went down to one after she'd been in solitary for a year, and their faces, along with hers, were the only ones that she ever saw. Sawyer was staring at herself in the mirror, at the look in her own eyes. She suddenly felt like she wasn't even looking at herself; like she was an outsider looking in on this girl staring at herself. At the guilt and shame in this girl's eyes. And for the first time since she'd killed the guards, she started crying. Sobbing. She got into the shower and turned it on the hottest that it would go and sat on the ground, feeling the scalding water cascading over her as she sobbed. She felt dirty._

 _She could see their blood on her skin again. The blood that she had to scrape her skin to get off. She was overcome with the urge to scrape it off, but no matter how much she tried, it was still on there. She tried to scrape it off of her arms, her legs, but no matter how much her nails scratched her skin it was still. there. She tried to scrape the feel of their hands on her flesh off. The water was burning her more, stinging where her nails had opened wounds on her body but she couldn't care less as she just kept sobbing on the floor of the shower, the water tinged red with not the guards blood, but her blood. She still felt dirty. She put her head in her hands and pulled her knees up to her chest and cried to where she physically could not breathe or let out any more tears._

 _The towel that she used to wipe herself off hurt when she put it on her body, and when she pulled it away, it was filled with the red spots from the open scrapes all over her body. The white was now red, but she didn't feel better in the slightest. In fact, she just didn't feel anything at all. Afterwards, she looked in the mirror and saw that the emptiness that was inside of her was reflected in her own eyes. After that day, she stopped talking._

Sure enough, she broke. They just didn't expect it to go down quite the way it did.


	9. The One with Charlotte pt 2

**A/N The end of this chapter is one of the things I first imagined while I was beginning to write this story, and I could probably edit this and change small things for eternity, but here you guys go. I honestly love this chapter, it makes me all emotional and it's a wild ride. It serves a lot for her character development in future chapters. (PS it's 6.5k words, so enjoy)**

It was when Octavia and Jasper found something. They called in Clarke and Bellamy, who gestured for her, which took her by surprise, but if he wanted her in there, it might have had something to do with Charlotte. _Great_.

"What does Bellamy want you for?" Miller asked from his spot next to her next to the fire, sounding curious but something else was in his voice.

"No idea," Sawyer said back distractedly, and pushed herself up. She could feel Miller's eyes on her as she walked towards the tent. Miller was torn on whether or not he should follow her in, but decided that his fear of Bellamy was worth more than his desire to watch over them together. Octavia explained the situation, putting a knife on the table, and a sense of dread settled into her stomach. Bellamy and her exchanged a look, which no one caught, luckily, because it was a look of _fuck_.

"This knife was made of metal from the dropship," Clarke said incredulously. _Yup, we're screwed._

"What do you mean?" Jasper asked her.

"I thought the spear missed his brain?" Sawyer muttered to Bellamy, and saw Jasper blush out of the corner of her eye. Bellamy rose his eyebrows at her before speaking. "No one else knows about this?"

"No one, we brought it straight here," Octavia told him, and Sawyer nodded slightly. Good. Maybe Charlotte can still be saved. Jasper was staring at Clarke, waiting for her response.

"Clarke?" he reminded her.

"It means the Grounders didn't kill Wells. It was one of us," she looked purely shocked, like no one in the camp could be capable of such a thing.

"So, there's a murderer in the camp?" Jasper asked, looking slightly terrified.

"Plenty of murderers," Sawyer spoke up. "Do you have eyes? You're surrounded by criminals." Bellamy gave her a look to stop talking, which she didn't get very often. She looked straight at him. "We can't tell anybody about this."

"Who are you, again?" Clarke asked slightly condescendingly, and Sawyer had to take a deep breath to stop from lashing out at her. Apparently, the woman doesn't use her eyes, and apparently Sawyer had a lot more of a protective instinct over Charlotte than she'd care to admit. "The people need to know about this."

"Not if you don't want anarchy," Bellamy told her, and Clarke steeled herself and began walking towards the exit. Bellamy got in the way of her, halting her.

"Get out of my way, Bellamy." _I wonder if she knows she's not intimidating._

"Be smart about this. Sawyer is right. Look at what we've achieved - the walls, the patrols. Like it or not, thinking the Grounders killed Wells is good for us," Bellamy attempted to reason with her, but it was obvious that she wasn't having any of it. She wanted vengeance.

"Oh, good for you, you mean. What - keep people afraid and they'll work for you? Is that it?" Clarke asked him rudely, and Octavia gave Sawyer a look to not respond. She wasn't sure what it was about Clarke, but everything about her irritated Sawyer. Maybe because she was exactly like her mother.

"Yeah, that's it. But it's good for all of us. Fear of the Grounders is building that wall. And besides, what are you gonna do? Just walk out there and ask the killer to step forward? You don't even know whose knife that is." Bellamy was surprisingly about to keep a stable head throughout the conversation, and Clarke looked like she wanted to kill him herself.

"Oh, really?" Clarke pointed to a spot on the knife that had initials carved. "JM. John Murphy. The people have a right to know." Clarke slipped out of the tent, and the four of them looked at each other.

"They're going to kill him," Octavia spoke, snapping them out of it. Octavia and Jasper ran out, leaving Bellamy and Sawyer there.

"They're going to kill her," he told her, or asked her. She wasn't sure which, but she nodded. Charlotte would come forward, she knew she would, and she would die. Bellamy ran out to catch up, and Sawyer ran out to attempt to find Charlotte and leave with her. She had to save her; she couldn't have another body on her hands.

"You son of a bitch!" Sawyer heard Clarke yell, and knew she had to find Charlotte, and fast. She tried to stand on her toes, but couldn't see anybody. She found a stump and tried to use that. She heard Murphy laugh.

"Woah, what's your problem?"

"Recognize this?" _I need to find her faster,_ Sawyer thought to herself, trying to spot her small blonde head. The problem was that people were compressing already, and she was impossible to find.

"It's my knife, where'd you find it?" _Found her._ Sawyer finally caught sight of Charlotte, but of course she was standing on the other side of the commotion. She jumped down and began to attempt to weave through the crowd that was already forming, but they were making it difficult. She ignored her claustrophobia the best she could. _I need to get to her._

"Where you dropped it after you killed Wells." Sawyer was still trying to weave through people, and that was suddenly more difficult when all of them completely froze at what Clarke was saying. She didn't care that she probably looked crazy, she just needed to get to her.

"Where I what?" Murphy just sounded purely confused. "The Grounders killed Wells, not me." _Charlotte, don't say anything,_ Sawyer mentally pleaded with her.

"I know what you did, and you're going to pay for it." Sawyer didn't have to see the look on Clarke's face or see the commotion to know that the princess was probably in Murphy's face. She was playing with fire. Sawyer didn't doubt for a second that Murphy had gotten locked up for a violent crime, so even if he didn't kill Wells, it wasn't a good route to take, especially when he gained notoriety around camp.

"Really?" he asked lowly, and Sawyer paused at the deadliness in his voice. If she was in Clarke's position, she would be terrified. "Bellamy, you really believe this crap?" Sawyer started moving again when he called for Bellamy, and finally got to the place that Charlotte was a minute ago. Of course, she wasn't there anymore. Charlotte had moved to the front of the crowd, which meant that Sawyer couldn't get her out without people wondering. _Fuck_.

"You threatened to kill him, we all heard you! You hated Wells!" _So did everybody else._ Clarke was still yelling, and Sawyer was a combination of freaked out about Charlotte and so irritated at the princess that she might've killed her herself if she had the opportunity.

"Plenty of people hated Wells. His father was the chancellor that locked us up." Murphy was trying to rally the crowd to gain support, but he was speaking on deaf ears; a decent amount of the camp already didn't like him. Nobody would believe him. Sawyer was standing behind Charlotte, and touched the girl's shoulder. Charlotte was startled before looking behind her, the look on her face showing that she was terrified. Sawyer tried to exchange a look with Bellamy, to try to have a clue for what to do, but he wasn't looking at her.

"Yeah, but you're the only one who got in a knife fight with him!" Clarke was yelling at him now, and Murphy surprisingly was quieter.

"Yeah, and I didn't kill him then, either." _He's got a point_ , Sawyer thought, but she also knew that he didn't kill Wells.

"Tried to kill Jasper, too," Octavia added, and it was evident from the look on her face that she believed wholeheartedly that Murphy killed Wells. When Octavia did something, it was all or nothing. The crowd started muttering. Bellamy finally looked at Sawyer and Charlotte, but couldn't do anything other than look. People's eyes were turned on him, and Sawyer realized it. She had to come up with her own plan, and quickly. Charlotte had moved so that she was holding hands with Sawyer, and she, for once, didn't want to yank away from the girl.

"What?" Jasper asked, looking at Monty for confirmation, who slightly shrugged. Murphy recognized that he was losing the fight.

"Come on, this is ridiculous. I don't have to answer to you. I don't have to answer to anyone!" he yelled the last part, and Bellamy chose that time to tear his eyes away from Sawyer and Charlotte to intervene.

"Come again?" his interjection quieted the crowd immediately - it was obvious that they put more stock into what Bellamy said than what Clarke said. Murphy looked panicked, and started pleading.

"Bellamy, look, I'm telling you man, I didn't do this." Bellamy had seconds to make his decision; either backup Clarke, or backup Murphy. If he backed up Murphy, they would begin searching for the killer and Charlotte would step forward. If he backed up Clarke, there was a strong possibility of Murphy dying. As soon as he started talking, it was obvious what decision he made.

"They found his fingers on the ground with your knife," Bellamy spoke lowly to Murphy, but everybody heard nonetheless. His voice was deep, so it carried, and the silence of the group helped it do so. Murphy looked defeated; Bellamy was his last hope, and he'd made his decision. Bellamy just had to hope he made the right one. He looked to Sawyer, silently pleading with her to agree with what he'd said, and she didn't offer him any support. She didn't know what she felt, she just knew that she didn't want the girl holding hands with her to die.

"Is this the kind of society that we want? You say there should be no rules," Clarke called out Bellamy, of course. "Does that mean that we can kill each other without - without punishment?"

"I already told you, I didn't kill anyone." Murphy was irritated once more. Clarke brought that out in everybody.

"I saw we float him!" someone called out, and Octavia was right. Murphy was going to die for a crime that he didn't even commit, because the princess had to go and call him out for it without thinking. She couldn't stop it now, couldn't stop them, Sawyer knew it already. A few people called out in agreement, and Sawyer tried to pull Charlotte back, but she'd rooted herself into the ground.

"That's not what I'm saying," Clarke tried to explain, and she recognized Connor.

"Why not? He deserves to float!" _What did Murphy do to Connor?_ Sawyer wondered; the two were fine a few days previously, which meant Murphy had to do something to make Connor hate him. She didn't have much time to dwell, though. "It's justice!"

"Revenge isn't justice!" _You're the one who wanted revenge, princess. Now you have to live with it._

"It's justice! Float him!" Connor started a chant, so everybody was chanting "Float him!" The look on Bellamy's face changed to one of 'oh shit', along with Octavia's, Clarke's, Jasper's, Monty's, and probably hers. Murphy went to run and somebody tripped him, the crowd descending upon him. Everything that happened next happened so quickly. One second Murphy was on the ground getting beat up. Octavia went to lunge forward to stop it and Bellamy pulled her back. Sawyer tried again to get Charlotte to move, and she wouldn't.

"We need to leave!" Sawyer told Charlotte, who was staring at Murphy, not budging. Sawyer yanked Charlotte's hand, and the girl finally started to budge, but the crowd swept them towards where they were now dragging Murphy.

"You don't need to see this," Sawyer was telling Charlotte, trying to get her to move once more. It was awkward because of the fact that Charlotte was taller than her. Charlotte continued to stare. "You don't need more death."

"It's my fault," Charlotte muttered. Murphy was being strung up. Charlotte looked disgusted with herself.

"You can stop this! They'll listen to you!" _No they won't!_ Sawyer mentally yelled to Clarke. She didn't realize what she'd put in motion. Murphy was going to die no matter what Bellamy did. Bellamy had a role to maintain, and if he didn't do this, he would lose that respect.

"Bellamy! You should do it!" _Fuck_. They were directly asking him to kill Murphy, to kick out what he was standing on. Sawyer grabbed Charlotte and turned her, the girl finally relaxing enough to move, but it was too late. She had to endure it. Sawyer just hoped that Charlotte's eyes were closed. Bellamy's name was being chanted, and Sawyer put her hand on the back of Charlotte's head, which was pressed into her shoulder. She vaguely realized that it was the most she'd touched anyone in over 4 years, but all of a sudden it wasn't Charlotte she was trying to hide. It was herself.

"I know you're not a killer," Clarke was trying to plead with Bellamy, but she didn't understand that it was her fault. All of it was Clarke's fault. "Bellamy, don't do this. Don't do this." Bellamy's eyes found Sawyer, who still had her hand on the back of Charlotte's head. His words from so many days ago echoed in her head. " _I don't want to kill him."_ She nodded at him slightly. He had to do it. For the people, for everybody, or else his leadership would crumble. Both of them recognized that. That brought him into motion, and he moved past Clarke, who tried to grab him. She tried to stop him again, and Bellamy brought out his foot and violently kicked out the stand. It fell with a bang, and Murphy's body lowered with a 'snap'. Sawyer tried not to stare at his body, but the shock caused her grip on Charlotte to falter slightly. She didn't notice. Charlotte turned her head and stared, horrified, at his dangling body.

"How could you?" Clarke screamed, shoving Bellamy.

"This is on you, princess. You should've kept your mouth shut." Bellamy got close to Clarke's face, and Sawyer could feel her heart beating out of her chest.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Sawyer heard Finn yell, breaking his way through the crowd.

"Cut him down! Cut him down!" Finn was demanding, and his yelling snapped Sawyer out of it.

"Charlotte, we need to run. Now, let's go," Sawyer was pulling on Charlotte to run, who proceeded to grab a rock off of the ground and slam it into Sawyer's face with everything that she had.

"What the fuck?!" Sawyer yelled, letting go of Charlotte. She ran towards the group by Murphy, and Sawyer tried to grab her, Octavia grabbing her before she could.

"Stop, okay?!" Charlotte yelled, and Sawyer tried to pull her away.

"Charlotte," Sawyer warned, her voice thick. The adrenaline of the situation made her not feel that it was broken, but the blood was difficult to ignore.

"Murphy didn't kill Wells!" she screamed and broke out of Octavia and Sawyer's holds. The crowd whipped around to stare at her. "I did!"

The crowd began muttering once more. Clarke took the axe out of Bellamy's belt, who was stuck staring at Sawyer in pure panic. Sawyer vaguely noticed Clarke cutting the rope that was holding Murphy and his body falling to the ground, her eye's stuck with Bellamy's. Neither of them knew what to do. After a minute, he broke their eye contact. He rushed forward, throwing Charlotte over his shoulder and running back towards the camp. She was yelling and Sawyer was seconds behind him. They ran into the planning tent, Bellamy setting Charlotte on the ground.

"What do we do?!" Bellamy asked Sawyer frantically.

"Don't let them know," she told him and Charlotte, and he nodded.

"Okay, okay," he ran his hand through his hair and Sawyer looked around for something to mop the blood off of her face. Bellamy, realizing what she was doing, sliced off some of the extra parachute and tossed it to her. She tried to stop the blood flow, getting as close to her nose as possible without touching it. _Thanks, kid._

"I'm sorry," Charlotte muttered, and she couldn't tell if it was to Sawyer about her nose, or to both of them about the whole thing. Sawyer nodded to her in acknowledgement. Finn, Clarke and Octavia ran in, and Sawyer could tell that a mob was forming outside. Bellamy started interrogating Charlotte.

"Why, Charlotte?" he demanded, and Sawyer had to admit that he was a good actor.

"Bring out the girl, Bellamy!" Murphy was yelling, and half of the tent flinched at his anger.

"I was just trying to slay my demons, like you told me!" apparently Charlotte was a good actor as well. Sawyer could only hope that she was doing as good of a job, but she doubted anybody was looking at her.

"What the hell is she talking about?" Clarke sounded extremely accusatory, and Sawyer got pissed off, quickly. _Like Bellamy told her to kill Wells?_

"It was a misunderstanding," he defended himself to Clarke. "Charlotte, that is not what I meant."

"Bring the girl out now!" Murphy called.

"We need to do something," Sawyer told them, her nose finally stopping bleeding. Octavia agreed with her.

"Please don't let them hurt me!" Charlotte begged, looking at all of them panicked.

"Nobody is going to hurt you," Sawyer reassured her, putting a hand on her back.

"If you guys have any bright ideas, speak up," Bellamy sounded panicked, and this time it wasn't a play.

"We need to get her out of here," Octavia spoke, and they all agreed. Finn and Clarke looked annoyed.

"Now you stay quiet!" Bellamy snapped at them.

"Those are your boys out there," Finn yelled at Bellamy.

"This is not my fault," Bellamy snapped back. "If she had listened to me, those idiots would still be building the wall."

"This is your fault. Come up with a solution," Sawyer told Clarke, who proceeded to glare at her.

"I didn't tell them to kill Murphy!" Clarke yelled at her, which pissed her off more.

"Who said we can't tell anyone about this? Who said that there were murderers in the camp? Who said that there would be anarchy? Who didn't _fucking listen_ , and now they want to murder a 12 year old girl who wanted to make her nightmares go away?" Sawyer wasn't yelling, forcing herself to keep her voice level. Her nose was killing her, but she was too pissed to pay attention to it. "You threw a fit, and now she's paying the price."

"She killed him!" Clarke was the only one who wasn't looking at her surprised. It was the most anyone had ever seen her speak at one time, or seen her actually angry since they'd gotten to the ground. If only Miller was there to see it.

"And you still don't want her dead. You're a fucking hypocrite who needs to sort out her shit because if she doesn't, they are going to kill her." Murphy chose that time to speak up, proving Sawyer's point.

"You want to build a society, princess? Let's build a society. Bring her out."

"No! Please, Sawyer," Charlotte was begging, and she buried her face in Sawyer's shoulder.

"Charlotte, hey, it's going to be okay," Bellamy spoke softly to her, and Sawyer could feel tears on her neck. Bellamy looked at Sawyer. "Stay here."

"Bellamy-" Octavia started, but Bellamy had already ducked out of the tent. Sawyer transferred Charlotte to Octavia, who gave her a look, and ducked out as well, wiping the tears off of her neck. She came up next to Bellamy, who glanced at her but didn't say anything to her. She'd probably hear about it later.

"Well, well, well. Look who decided to join us," Murphy began walking towards them, and got close to Bellamy. Sawyer stared at the blood on his face, vaguely wondering if hers looked anything similar. Judging by the looks people were giving her, probably.

"Dial it down and back off," Bellamy warned.

"Or what? What are you gonna do about me? Hang me?" _I wish_ , Sawyer thought to herself.

"I was just giving the people what they wanted."

"Yeah. Yeah, that's a good idea. Why don't we do that right now?" Murphy turned around to address the crowd. "So who here wants to see the real murderer hung up?" the only people that rose their hands were the people that Murphy was the closest too, and Sawyer saw that Mbege was included. _Of course he was. Can we hang him, too?_ Sawyer felt another presence next to her, and turned to see that Octavia had left the tent to join them. Octavia nodded at Sawyer and she felt relief wash over her. They'd left with Charlotte.

"So, it's okay to string me up for nothing, but when this little bitch confesses, you all let her walk?" Murphy was steadily getting louder, and more pissed off. Octavia put her hand on Bellamy's arm as a sort of warning, and Bellamy just nodded at her and gestured for her to go to the side with Sawyer. They took a few steps to the side. "Cowards! All of you are cowards!"

"Hey, Murphy, Murphy!" Bellamy stepped forward to try to placate him. "It's over." Murphy backed away slightly.

"Whatever you say, boss." Bellamy turned around. Murphy grabbed a log and slammed it into the back of Bellamy's head.

"Son of a bitch!" Octavia screamed and launched herself forward at Murphy. Sawyer lunged to try to grab her, attempting to restrain her. Jasper ran forward and grabbed Murphy to prevent him from touching Octavia, and Murphy proceeded to punch Jasper hard enough to knock him flat. Octavia and Sawyer both ran to check on Bellamy, knowing that Charlotte was gone.

"Come on, let's get the girl." Murphy pulled up the edge of the tent, and upon seeing it empty, swore. "Charlotte!" he screamed. "Charlotte! I know you can hear me. And when I find you, you are gonna pay!" Murphy turned around and grabbed Octavia, who was checking on Bellamy's head.

"Where did they go?!" Murphy was yelling at Octavia. When she spat in his face, he moved so that his forearm was pressing into her throat. Sawyer was close behind grabbing his other arm and twisting it behind his back, bringing her knee up between Murphy's legs. It was a cheap shot, but effective. He instantly let go of Octavia and bent in half. Sawyer forced him to the ground with the arm that she felt the urge to break like Miller had shown her, and put her knee on his chest, keeping him down long enough so that Octavia could run. Murphy made eye contact with Sawyer.

"Help me find the girl. You know she needs to pay," Murphy told her, and Sawyer just stared at him, unimpressed and trying not to punch him in the face. If this was the way he brought people to his cause, it needed to improve.

"What are you doing?" They heard Bellamy ask and Sawyer turned her head, giving Murphy enough time to grab a knife and put it to her throat. Murphy looked between the two of them and groaned.

"What? You're Bellamy's bitch now? I had such high hopes for you," Murphy spoke very condescendingly for someone who got their hand twisted and almost broken a second later, forcing him to drop the knife. Sawyer had one wrist in her grip and used her knee to push into him to get up, hearing him groan as she put her body weight on her knee, even though she didn't weigh much. She shoved his arm back towards him and ran, hoping that Bellamy would get the idea. She heard footsteps following hers. She didn't know where she was going, but figuring she would find out eventually, when Charlotte inevitably decided to turn herself in again.

"Sawyer, wait," Bellamy called for her, and she slowed to a stop. "You need to go back to camp. And what the hell was that about earlier? Yelling at Clarke?"

"She deserved it." she looked at him blankly, just wanting to find Charlotte. She needed to save her, she needed to save herself.

"I don't care if she deserved it, but since when do you care enough?" it was harsh, but true. The only person she'd actually shown affection for since landing was Charlotte. Sawyer thought about her next words carefully before speaking.

"Since I know what it's like to slay my demons." Sawyer turned around and began walking again, only to be halted by Bellamy grabbing her arm, pulling it to turn her around. She met his eyes, and couldn't read the emotion in them.

"Go back to camp." it was a direct order, to which she almost laughed at.

"No."

"Sawyer, go back to camp, now. You don't need to be caught up in this." at this, Sawyer did give a short, ironic laugh.

"I already am. I'm finding-" Sawyer was cut off mid sentence by the sound of branches snapping. She held up a finger, listening. It was coming to her left. Sawyer took off running that way, and saw Charlotte in the distance. Bellamy ran past her, obviously seeing Charlotte also. He grabbed Charlotte out of nowhere, surprising her. She let out a small scream, causing Bellamy to put his hand over his mouth, and Sawyer caught up to them. Bellamy was about to say something when they heard the sound of multiple feet stomping through the forest, and a distant light. Sawyer motioned for them to hide as Murphy started yelling.

"Charlotte! You can't hide forever." _he has a point,_ Sawyer thought, and a look exchanged with Bellamy proved he agreed with her on that.

"Don't worry! We won't hurt you," another man called out, causing Sawyer's entire body to tense, and she stopped breathing for a second. Mbege. Of course he was with Murphy. It shouldn't surprise her, but it still caused her to tense and triggered flashbacks every time she heard his voice or caught him staring at her. They laughed at that statement, and she felt Bellamy's eyes on her. At that distraction, Charlotte ran out from them, towards where their voices were coming from. Bellamy caught her quickly.

"Let me go!" Charlotte demanded, and Bellamy held onto her more, causing her to try to escape more.

"I'm trying- hey, hey," he pulled her back. "I'm trying to help you."

"I'm not your sister! Just stop helping me!" Charlotte yelled at Bellamy, and Sawyer went to speak, but Charlotte cut her off. "I'm over here!" she screamed, and went to run again, but Sawyer caught her this time, yanking her back successfully.

"Are you trying to get us all killed?" Sawyer snapped.

"Just go, okay? I'm the one they want."

"Okay, Charlotte, listen to me. I won't leave you." Bellamy forced her to look into his eyes, and Charlotte calmed down slightly.

"Please, Bellamy," Charlotte spoke calmly, and then tried to run again. Bellamy caught her, and threw her over his shoulder this time. Sawyer was growing more irritated with her - couldn't she understand that they didn't want her to die? Bellamy turned to look at Sawyer.

"Go back to camp," his voice being harsher this time, and Sawyer shook her head. "This isn't up for debate."

"Murphy! I'm over here!" Charlotte yelled, and Bellamy stared at Sawyer.

"Run, Bellamy," Sawyer told him, and he kept staring at her. Sawyer knew then that he wasn't going to leave until she told him he was going back, which was putting all of them in danger. Sawyer sighed and nodded, turning around to run in the other direction, making as much noise as possible. When she heard Bellamy's feet take off, she stopped for a minute before turning and going in the opposite direction, towards him. Apparently Murphy had heard Charlotte as well, and Sawyer could hear them in front of her. _Fuck_.

"Come on out, Charlotte! Come on out!" Murphy was yelling, and they were significantly ahead of her. She swore, knowing that she waited too long.

"Bellamy!" she heard Murphy shout, and picked up her pace, still trying to be silent. "You cannot fight all of us. Give her up." Sawyer wondered in the back of her mind if Murphy knew how loud he actually was. She'd finally gotten close enough to see what was going on, and crouched down close to Murphy, still hidden.

"Maybe not, but I'll take a few of you with me," she heard Bellamy say, standing in front of Charlotte. Sawyer shook her head; she knew that he meant it, and desperately hoped it wouldn't come to that.

"Bellamy! Stop!" the princess had run past her, and stood in between the two of them. "This has gone too far. Just calm down, we'll talk about this." Sawyer shifted her weight, her leg beginning to fall asleep, and accidentally snapped a branch as soon as Clarke had finished talking. The next second, she was in Murphy's arm with a knife to her throat. Fantastic.

"I'm done being calm," Murphy told them, taking a step back with Sawyer, putting more distance in between him and Bellamy, who looked murderous at the both of them. Sawyer locked eyes with Charlotte, refusing to look at Bellamy, knowing he was glaring at her. Charlotte was purely panicking. _Don't do anything,_ Sawyer silently willed her, but Charlotte turned her gaze to Murphy's instead.

"Let her go," Finn started to move towards him, and Murphy jerked back again, the knife pressing into her throat, causing her to flinch slightly. _Payback for earlier, I suppose_.

"Back off! I will slit her throat."

"No, please, no, don't hurt her," Charlotte began begging, and was still avoiding Sawyer's eyes.

"Don't hurt her?" Murphy asked Charlotte, who nodded. "Okay, I'll make you a deal."

"Run!" Sawyer told Charlotte, and Murphy pressed the knife more into her throat.

"I'm sick of listening to you talk, I will gladly kill you," Murphy hissed into her ear, and only the knife to her neck was stopping her from flinching away. Every ounce of her being wanted to bolt as fast as she could away from Murphy, and she could feel herself beginning to panic. Her heart was racing, her entire body was shaking, and she was struggling to get a breath in. She was trying desperately to hide it from Charlotte, but when she finally looked at Bellamy, she knew he could tell.

"Then you'll actually have a reason to be hung," Sawyer said low enough for only him to hear, half because she didn't want Bellamy to get more pissed off at her for patronizing him, and half because if she spoke any louder, her voice would've been shaking. She knew she was playing with fire, but she needed Charlotte to live. "Shame I wouldn't be alive to see it." Murphy's grip immediately changed, and he turned around to hold her against the tree, his hand on her neck instead of the knife. She was dangling above the ground, and she could barely lift up her knee to try to shove it between them. She couldn't get him off, and started panic more; that wasn't what she wanted. She was struggling even more to get a breath in, his hand tightening painfully. She vaguely heard Bellamy yell, and after a moment Murphy was turning around again and holding her again, flush against him with the knife pressed into her throat. She felt a trickle of blood run down her neck as she struggled to breathe, and she saw that she wasn't the only one panicking. She couldn't swallow the lump in her throat out of fear it would cause his knife to slip. One of Murphy's guys in between the two groups, obviously having moved to prevent Bellamy from reaching them. He moved back so he was behind Murphy once more. Murphy's movements caused Bellamy to let go of Charlotte, which caused Sawyer to panic more. _Please grab her_ , she was mentally pleading.

"As I was saying. You come with me right now, and I will unfortunately not kill this bitch," Murphy offered, and Sawyer saw her seriously considering it. The selfish part of her wanted Charlotte to take the deal, but the part that wanted to save her was stronger. And if she was dead, the nightmares would go away. She wouldn't have to deal with her mind torturing her any more. That was enticing as well.

"No," she said simply, and Murphy's grip on her shoulder dug into her skin, knowing his nails would leave impressions. Charlotte began to move towards Murphy and Bellamy grabbed her.

"No! No, I have to!" she was insisting.

"Charlotte, stop," Sawyer said, and Charlotte stopped struggling against Bellamy. Bellamy settled her behind his arm, and Charlotte was looking desperately at Sawyer, who was still trying to conceal her panic. Bellamy looked like he was trying not to panic as well, but he was trying to figure out how to save both of them. "I'm not worth it." the statement was directed at both of them. _Save her,_ Sawyer urged Bellamy in her head. _Please._

"Stop. Talking." Murphy commanded her, but all eyes were on her at the last sentence. "Bellamy, give me the girl, or the bitch dies, now."

"Murphy, this is not happening," Bellamy tried to reason again, and Sawyer looked around to see Clarke and Finn standing to the side, looking completely at a loss. They may as well have not been there, and if she wasn't panicking as much as she was, she would've been pissed. _Of course, when we actually need them to act, they can't do anything._

"I can't let any of you get hurt anymore," Charlotte started, and Bellamy was prepared to stop her if she ran towards Murphy again. "Not because of me. Not after what I did." instead of running forwards, she turned around, and ran off of the edge.

"Charlotte!" Clarke screamed at the same time Bellamy screamed "No!" and Murphy released Sawyer enough for her to dart forwards to see the ledge, and even Murphy and his gang froze in shock. Sawyer spun around and easily took Murphy to the ground in what Miller had showed her. Sawyer's knees pinning him down and was punching his face with everything Miller had told her to do, and she could barely feel her knuckles hurting. Bellamy pulled her off of Murphy and took her place. Sawyer sunk to the ground, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her elbows on her knees, her arms straight in front of her. She didn't know whose blood was whose, and was vaguely aware that her neck was bleeding, but she didn't care. She was staring at a spot straight in front of her. _She is gone_. She vaguely heard Clarke trying to stop Bellamy, and eventually Bellamy was yanked off of Murphy. _She is gone._

"He deserves to die," Bellamy was saying, and Sawyer agreed, but she didn't move in the slightest. She stayed staring at the spot. All emotion seemed to be slowly draining out of her body into the ground beneath her as she stared. She vaguely heard Clarke and Bellamy yelling at each other, but she couldn't bring herself to care. _She is gone._

She felt the feeling again - that she wasn't in her own body. That she was looking upon another girl was was sitting on a forest floor, covered in dirt and blood, hers and Murphy's. Charlotte's imaginary blood on her hands. _She is gone._ Bellamy suddenly entered her field of view, holding Murphy almost over the edge of the cliff. She heard his voice say something, and then throwing him to the side. Her eyes didn't move in the slightest, still fixated on the ground in front of her. _She is gone._

"Sawyer," she heard Bellamy say, but didn't bother showing any sign that she had heard him. "Sawyer, we need to leave." _She is gone._ When he didn't get a response, she felt Bellamy pick her up, one arm beneath her legs and one behind her back, and began walking. She was so empty that she didn't even feel her typical panic response rise, and he was the second person that had touched her for that long. The first was broken in the bottom of the ravine. _She is gone._

She was so out of it that she didn't notice that he wasn't even taking her back to camp. He had been walking for a while when she felt him lower her to the ground with them, sitting down in a way that his legs were under the arch that her legs were forming. One of his arms was still behind her back, and she felt him lean her into his chest, the other wrapping around her, tangling his hand into her hair and holding her there. He was shaking, and she felt his tears fall onto her head. She didn't move, her arms crossed over her chest. She felt like her arms being crossed was holding herself together from completely falling apart. _She is gone._

"I'm sorry," she heard him mutter, shaking his head. The tears wouldn't come to her eyes. "I'm sorry."

 _She is gone._


	10. The One with the Rescue Mission pt 2

**A/N Thanks for the positive feedback/favorites/follows! Also, the last sentence in Chapter 8 is one of my favorites. But enjoy this chapter.**

Sawyer wasn't sure about the passing of time anymore, she just knew facts. She knew that at some point, they'd gone back to camp, and that she'd walked there by herself. She knew that Miller was mad at her for some reason that he'd been trying to tell her when she'd walked away from him that first day, and he kept trying to talk to her, but she couldn't process what he was trying to say. Sawyer had been going through the motions for the past 4 days; she knew that she'd gotten maybe 4 total hours of sleep, all waking up in a cold sweat and Charlotte's face imprinted in her mind. The marks on her neck from Murphy's hand and knife were mostly gone. She hadn't smiled since then, not like she did much of it anyways. She went out of her way to avoid any sort of contact with other people. Bellamy had gotten away with touching her the first night she was in total shock, but since then, if anybody tried to touch her she would flinch away. Bellamy also hadn't said a word to her since they got back, but he kept giving her these looks that she couldn't decipher. She couldn't glare, smirk, talk. She hadn't said a single word since Charlotte's death; she couldn't convince her mouth to open. She didn't have anything to say. It was only a few days until she had a run in with someone she couldn't remember the name of.

"Hey, you're Sawyer, right?" Sawyer stared at him blankly, standing at watch. "Word on the street is that you killed the kid, and then fucked our fearless leader afterward. What, was she in the way or something?" he laughed cruelly at her, and she took a deep breath, trying to shut out his words.

"Hey, shut the fuck up!" Octavia walked up to him, appearing out of nowhere, shoving him back. "Does it make you feel better to be a dick to people? Huh? What did she do to you?" the man stepped up and shoved her back; they were gathering some sort of crowd, and it was clear by the murderous look on his face that he hated Octavia for taunting him in front of everybody.

"Just because you're a Blake doesn't mean I won't kill you," he practically spat at Octavia, who took a step closer to him, and drew out her knife.

"I'd like to see you try," she hissed, and Sawyer went to step up to separate the two of them; Octavia couldn't get hurt on her behalf. Before she made it, Bellamy pushed the two apart and stepped in between them.

"Enough," he turned to the man. "If you even think about putting your hands on my sister again, I will cut them off, and that will be the least of your worries." the man glared at Bellamy, but turned and walked away, shooting a smirk to Sawyer. Bellamy turned to Octavia.

"Bell, I could've handled that! Dax is scum," Octavia was defending herself. Bellamy took a second before he spoke.

"Why would you fight for her?" he asked, knowing full well that Sawyer could hear him. He looked over at her as he said the next part. "She doesn't care about any of us. Don't fight for someone that wouldn't fight for you."

"You're wrong," Octavia told him, becoming even more irritated by him. "She cares about all of us. Just because you're pissed off about Charlotte doesn't mean you get to take it out on any of us, especially her."

"Keep thinking that, Octavia," Bellamy was looking at her again. "But it's childish. She only cares about herself. You'll be better off as soon as you realize that."

"Leave, Bellamy," Octavia steeled herself. Bellamy opened his mouth, and she shook her head, crossing her arms. "I'm done with this conversation." Bellamy shook his head and walked away, and Octavia walked up to Sawyer.

"You care about us, right? Please tell me I didn't just defend you to my idiot brother for nothing," she pleaded with Sawyer, who looked the other way. _I didn't ask you to defend me. It's better if you think I don't care. I didn't ask you to care._

"Sawyer! I'm trying to talk to you." after a minute of not replying, Octavia spoke again, her voice growing louder and more frustrated with each passing word until she was almost yelling at her. Scream! Cry! Do something, so we know that you're actually alive!"

"Octavia, back off," Miller snapped at her and she rolled her eyes.

"Down, killer," Octavia spoke like she was talking to a dog, like Miller was Sawyer's personal watchdog. Which, really, he almost was. Miller never left her side, even if she didn't respond when he tried to talk to her and didn't want anything to do with him. "I'm trying to get her to do something other than sit there like a damn robot, and unless you have a better idea, get the fuck off of my back." Overall, Octavia hated Miller for unknown reasons, who huffed and left. Octavia crouched down to where Sawyer was at watch.

"Sawyer, we all miss her. Just do something for us, please." Sawyer turned her head to look at her, but didn't say anything. She couldn't will herself to open her mouth.

"Fine. Sulk by yourself then." Octavia turned and left. That was morning. The next thing she knew, Octavia was missing.

"Sawyer, have you seen Octavia?" Bellamy had asked her. She was perched in a tree, her most recent way to get away from everybody. She looked at him for a minute before shaking her head, and Bellamy swore before walking away. She saw everybody gathering in a crowd in the middle of camp, and a few minutes later, Bellamy walked back up to her.

"We're going out to look for Octavia," he told her, and she stared down at him. He huffed, running his hand through his hair. He was deep into his leader persona. "She's my sister. Get off your high horse and come with me." He left after that, and after staring after him for a minute, she climbed down from the tree, landing softly on the ground. It was Octavia and Bellamy. Sawyer felt like she owed something to the girl, since she'd killed her boyfriend and defended her. The Blakes were going to kill her one day. Since she already had her knife, she walked on the outskirts of the crowd, making her way to where Bellamy and Miller were standing.

"Miller, I need you to stay here and guard the camp," Bellamy was saying to Miller, who nodded. Miller turned to see her there, and turned to protest to Bellamy, who gave him a look.

"Stay safe," Miller muttered to her, going to take the post she'd just left from guarding. He obviously wasn't happy about Sawyer leaving, especially with Bellamy.

"Look at that, she can actually follow orders," Bellamy said lowly, and was about to say something more when they were all suddenly halted.

"Guys, guys, come here. Did you see that?" one of the guys asked. "Look up there!" everybody started looking up at the stars. It looked like stars were falling from the sky, twinkling and leaving trails.

"They didn't work," a girl said, sounding upset. Sawyer didn't recognize her, but that didn't mean much. "They didn't see the flares."

"A meteor shower tells you that?" Bellamy asked her.

"It's not a meteor shower, it's a funeral. Hundreds of bodies being returned to the Earth from the Ark. This is what it looks like from the other side. They didn't get our message," Clarke first sounded annoyed, and then her voice was full of remorse.

"This is all because of you!" the girl yelled, running forward to come at Bellamy. Spacewalker restrained her. Sawyer still didn't understand what was going on, and honestly couldn't bring herself to care about it in the slightest. She was just there to find Octavia.

"I helped you find the radio!" Bellamy defended himself.

"Yeah, after you jacked it from my pod and trashed it!" _Oh, that's what's going on._ She realized. She now knew that Bellamy had destroyed a radio that could've been used to contact the Ark. She also knew that the girl had come down in a pod. So she _was_ new.

"Yeah, he knows." Clarke put her hand on the new girl's shoulder. "Now he has to live with it." Sawyer knew she should be annoyed at Clarke, but just couldn't be. Bellamy already looked like he regretted his decision, and she was rubbing it in. Bellamy put on his leader face again, covering up the remorse.

"All I know is that my sister is out there, and I'm gonna find her. You coming or what?" he asked them, and Spacewalker agreed. Nobody moved, all of them stopped and staring at the commotion.

"What are we waiting for?" Bellamy yelled, calling them to attention. "Move out!" he walked out to lead the group, so she followed him with the rest of them. Looking back at the group that had stayed, she also knew that Spacewalker and the new girl were together, and that Clarke looked upset and sad about it, which probably meant that something had happened between her and Spacewalker. Even without the apathy, she wouldn't have given a fuck. She caught Miller's eye, and he looked like he wanted to say something, try to stop her from going, but he couldn't. He wouldn't defy Bellamy.

They walked for a long time, nobody seeing anything. Bellamy had given the order to spread out and search for any clue whatsoever about how to find Octavia, or where she would've gone. They'd started at the place he'd last seen her at, some place in the middle of the woods, and they fanned out from there.

"Look! Over here!" someone near her had yelled, and she headed towards where he was.

"What is it?" she heard Bellamy ask, and saw them a second later when she walked into the small clearing that they were at, on the top of a steep hill.

"Right there, you see it? Is that Octavia's?" he shone his light on something that looked like a strip of cloth.

"Rope," Bellamy ordered, and someone threw it towards him. He secured it.

"What are you doing?" Spacewalker stepped forward and questioned him. _It's pretty obvious what he's doing._

"We need the rope to get back up," Bellamy told him. "Flashlight." someone behind him handed him a flashlight, and he used the rope to steady him as he headed down the hill, stopping at the bush that the strip of cloth was entangled in.

"It's hers!" he announced, grabbing it. "I'm going all the way down." As he headed down, Jasper was the next person to grab the rope to head down. Once he got down, Sawyer grabbed the rope and used it to steady her as she ran down the hill, the rope catching her as she almost fell near the bottom.

"You okay?" someone yelled from the top, and she looked up and nodded her head before continuing towards where Bellamy and Jasper were crouching, looking at something. She looked, and saw that a rock had a decent amount of blood on it, and it hadn't dried yet. Spacewalker came down after her and joined the group.

"Someone else was here," Bellamy proclaimed, staring at a very large set of footprints that definitely did not belong to Octavia.

"Prints are deeper going that way," Spacewalker told them, pointing out. _So he was carrying her. Why?_ "He was carrying her," Spacewalker said gravely, and exchanged a long and meaningful look with Bellamy. Sawyer could see Bellamy trying to maintain his leader face, but it was slipping slightly at the knowledge that his sister was hurt and taken by a Grounder.

"If they took her, she's alive," Jasper told them, and it would've been more reassuring if he didn't sound terrified. "Like when they took me." _like when they took you and strung you up like bait, right. Reassuring._ Regardless, it was probably what Bellamy needed to hear at the time, to hear that his sister probably wasn't dead. He could go without more death. Bellamy looked towards Sawyer, who walked up to maintain pace with him as the rest of the campers dropped down. He didn't say anything to her, just looked between her and the campers until the rest were down.

They set off following the deep footsteps, Spacewalker in the lead of course, like the last time that they tracked something. They had walked a decent ways when everybody stopped, and for good reason. There were skeletons hanging from the trees; skeletons that didn't look too old. It was an extremely clear sign saying that they should turn away, and not go past that point. It was likely Grounder territory that they were in already. The Grounders may have permitted them to be on their territory to a certain extent, but when it came to this, it was pretty clear that it was a firm "come onto this land and you're going to be killed" type of situation.

"I don't speak Grounder, but I'm pretty sure this means "keep out" the Almighty Spacewalker placed his great wisdom upon the group. _I should stop calling him Spacewalker. It's getting exhausting._ Bellamy was looking at the skeletons nervously, and the group was getting antsy as a whole.

"Let's get out of here, it's crazy," one of the guys said, sounding panicked. "I'm outta here," another one said, turning around and walking away without another thought. Several others echoed him, and soon there was a decent amount of people turning around and walking away. _Fucking cowards._

"Go back if you want," Bellamy told them, following it up quieter with "my sister, my responsibility." Sawyer couldn't help but wonder how many times he'd said that during his lifetime. Bellamy immediately started forward, not letting his apprehension stop him any longer. Sawyer immediately followed; maybe if she could save someone else's, maybe that would begin to reverse the bad that she'd done. Maybe. Bellamy looked back at her following closely behind him; he looked like he wanted to tell her to go back for a second, but he just nodded at her before resuming tracking.

"I'd walk into hell to find her," Jasper declared, and she heard him start walking.

"I think we just did," she heard Finn say, and start off also. She heard several people still following, and hopefully those people had weapons. They'd likely need them.

They'd changed directions exactly 15 times over the course of the night. The sun was already high enough in the sky that the pinks, purples and reds had faded and was now heating them up. Some people were falling behind, the people who didn't go out in the forest much, but they were trying to keep up. Most likely because they didn't know where they would go if they tried to turn around. Now that it was light, Sawyer saw that Mbege was part of the group that had stayed with Bellamy to help find Octavia, and tried to put as much distance between him and her as she possibly could. Due to this, she was always very close to Finn and Bellamy, who kept looking over at her, almost like he was checking to make sure that she hadn't gone anywhere. The two were silent most of the night, besides telling each other when to turn. And that hadn't happened for a very long time.

"I got nothing," Finn eventually admitted. "We lost the trail."

"Keep looking," Bellamy ordered him, speeding up past where Finn had stopped.

"Wandering around aimlessly isn't the way to find your sister, we should backtrack-"

"I'm not going back," Bellamy interrupted Finn. Roma suddenly sounded panicked.

"Hey, where's Drew?" Roma asked, and they all started looking around.

"I just saw him a second ago," Jasper's panic mirrored Roma's, which likely wasn't helping at that point. Panic escalated every situation, especially in groups.

"Spread out. He couldn't have gotten that far," Bellamy ordered, and right after he said that, there was a loud "thunk" and a body dropping out of a tree. All of them turned towards it in shock, nobody saying anything for a minute. It was obvious that is was Drew; the blonde hair gave him away. _The blood on his neck is an interesting addition_. Bellamy and Finn ran over to make sure that it was him, and Finn stared up.

"They use the trees," he announced to the group, and now everybody in the group was looking up.

"We shouldn't have crossed the boundary," one of the guys said.

"Now can we go back?" Roma asked them, her voice still holding panic. It seemed like everybody except for Bellamy, Finn, and Sawyer were completely panicking.

"There," Jasper said, pointing towards a man that had suddenly appeared. His voice was now quiet. "Right there." All of them began looking around.

"Another one," the same guy as before said, and another Grounder was running in the distance.

"We should run," Finn suggested, and they took off running in the opposite direction of which they'd seen the Grounders. It seemed like the Grounders were closing in on all sides of them, running alongside them and behind them. One of the ones running alongside them would start running towards them, causing them to change directions. It kept happening, and soon, people in the group were falling behind and getting sick of the Grounders chasing them. It seemed to Sawyer like they were trying to lead them somewhere, but they didn't have any other option if they didn't want to get their throats cut like Drew's.

"What are we gonna do? They keep heading us off," somebody yelled, to which someone replied "just keep running!"

"I can't run much longer!" Jasper yelled to them. Someone yelled that they weren't going to stop for him, but Bellamy stopped running.

"I'm sick of running anyway."

"Hey, what are you doing?" Finn asked him, grabbing his arm like he was going to pull Bellamy along.

"They know where she is," Bellamy insisted. They all stopped and looked at each other for a second, but Roma and another one of the guys had kept running.

"Diggs? Where are you?" Roma yelled. _Maybe the problem is that people keep yelling_. If they were going to invade Grounder territory, they should've been at least a bit quieter about it.

"Roma!" they heard a man, presumably Diggs, yell back. They looked at each other and started chasing after Roma. Soon, they heard her scream from ahead of them, and they were almost upon her when she started running again.

"Wait! Roma!" Bellamy yelled after her, trying to get her to stop.

"Could be more, stop," Finn told them, holding out his hand to get them to slow down. They'd ran almost straight into a branch that Diggs was impaled on; it looked like a trap had been set up to kill whomever had ran that way. Which is precisely what they did, it just looked like Diggs was the unlucky one. Finn, Bellamy, Jasper, another girl, and her all stopped, but the rest of the people kept running. It looked like nobody had noticed, too focused on staring at Diggs' body.

"They were leading us here. It's the only direction we could run in," Jasper told them, and Sawyer agreed with him for once.

"Hey. Where'd they go?" Finn asked, looking behind him. They'd finally noticed that the few people still following them had disappeared.

"After Roma," Bellamy sounded annoyed and started running again. Sawyer was getting sick of running, and she especially didn't want to do it after people who didn't have enough protective instincts to not run into death traps. They caught up with the people who'd ran forward soon enough, and Bellamy got them to slow down and stay behind him and Finn. They'd finally begun to walk quieter, and not yell, which they should've been doing since the beginning.

"There she is," the only other girl now stated. She was standing against a tree. "Roma!" she called quietly, and the girl didn't move at all. Bellamy walked out in front of them and the rest of them followed, but Bellamy got to her first, and his eyes doubled in size and his face fell. _Well, that's not good._ She soon found out why: Roma had been impaled directly through the heart into a tree.

"They're playing with us," Finn told them, silently urging Bellamy to turn around. He couldn't take his eyes off of Roma. He reached out to close her eyes, which were still open in shock.

"She only came because of me," Bellamy said quietly, his voice filled with guilt. _He thinks it's his fault that the girl is dead. If she hadn't ran in front, she probably wouldn't be,_ Sawyer thought, but didn't relay it to Bellamy. He looked like he wouldn't listen if she opened her mouth anyways, but now Bellamy had more death on his plate.

"They can kill us whenever they want," Finn told Bellamy quietly, trying to reassure him.

"Then they should get it over with!" Jasper yelled the last part, completely negating all that they had done trying to keep quiet. "Come on! We know you're out there!" He was yelling, and Bellamy and Finn were on him almost immediately, trying to get him to stop yelling. "You want to kill us-"

"Bellamy!" the other girl yelled, and they all turned their attention away from Jasper to see a Grounder charging forward at them. Looking around, they were completely surrounded, thanks to Jasper's yelling. Because of him, they were all going to die now. There was no way out, unless all of them had suddenly learned how to climb trees. They were almost upon them when a horn blew loudly. All of the Grounders halted and turned away, running. _Okay, so the horn probably means something bad is coming, or else there's no reason for them to turn around and run._ The horn blew again.

"That horn. What does it mean?" Jasper asked, and Sawyer suddenly remembered the last time they'd heard it. The acid fog. It'd been blown before it'd started flooding them, as a warning.

"Acid fog," Finn told them, and Sawyer was thankful that she didn't have to say anything, because she couldn't wrench her mouth open. Finn started digging in his pack and pulled out a bundle of cloth that looked like some of the parachute.

"We have to run," the girl insisted, looking at Finn.

"There's no time," he told her and flicked his arms, spreading the parachute open. Sawyer suddenly realized what he was going to try to get them to do and started shaking her head, backing away.

"Get under," Finn told them, and everybody else started rushing to get under. Bellamy turned back and looked at her.

"There's no time," Bellamy told her, walking and grabbing her, trying to get her to go under. She tried to resist and he pulled her harder, soon just picking her up and putting her under the parachute with the rest of them. She couldn't breathe, everybody was looking at her and she was in the same tiny area with Mbege and she couldn't breathe. The air was hot with other people's exhales and their body heat, Bellamy was still holding her because all of her muscles were tensed like she was going to run at any second, and she was going to. She couldn't get her lungs to take in air, and felt like she was going to die because of lack of oxygen. She was hyperventilating and was going lightheaded. Hearing them talk, she couldn't focus on their words, trying to focus on the circles that Bellamy was rubbing into her thigh to try to ground her, until Bellamy ducked out and checked, and there wasn't any fog. Sawyer got up and bolted, running away from the parachute and away from everybody that was breathing the same air as her. Finding a tree not too far away, she sunk to the ground and tried to focus on breathing and focus on the air around her, that she wasn't in a tiny space anymore but she still couldn't take in air and she was shaking more than anything and on the verge of crying from panic that she couldn't breathe and couldn't think and couldn't stop shaking for the life of her. She heard people talking again but couldn't focus on anything that they were saying and her vision was going blurry. She felt someone sit down next to her and wanted to move away but her body wasn't following any of her commands at the moment.

"Breathe with me," she heard Bellamy say. He breathed deeply, inhale, exhale. Inhale. Exhale. He didn't say anything other than that, just tried to get her to breathe the same as he was and whenever she would start hyperventilating again he would tell her to breathe again. It felt like hours before she could finally breathe, but it was likely only minutes. She looked up to him staring at her.

"My sister would get them," he offered as an explanation, and Sawyer nodded. She didn't want to go back to the rest of the group, but Bellamy stood up and held out his hand for her to take. She pushed herself up without it, and Bellamy looked unsurprised that she did so. Trying to ignore everybody's looks at her, they rejoined the group. At that time, they looked around, and Bellamy caught sight of one of the Grounders.

"They're coming back," he told them.

"I think he's alone," Jasper said quietly, staring at the Grounder.

"Now can we run?" the girl asked, looking like she was ready to run.

"He doesn't see us. I'm going after him," Bellamy told them, and Finn tried to get him to rethink.

"And what? Kill him?"

"No. Catch him. Make him tell me where Octavia is, then kill him." Bellamy started following after the Grounder, and Sawyer figured that was a lot more logical.

"How do we know he's not leading us to another trap?" Jasper asked them, and Sawyer set off to follow Bellamy, not wanting to listen to them.

"We don't," Finn told Jasper, but followed them anyways. They were finally being quiet, making sure to watch where they were stepping, like they were hunting. They were on the Grounder's tail for a while, and he didn't look back, making it seem like he didn't know they were there. Soon enough, the Grounder entered a cave that was mostly concealed in the rock.

"I'm going in," Bellamy told them and they nodded. He creeped in behind the Grounder, and when he rounded the corner, they were surprised to hear Octavia's voice.

"Bellamy?" she asked, sounding as surprised as they were. _Finally, we found her_.

"Octavia," Bellamy sounded completely relieved, and then ran forward to her. Sawyer turned the corner to see that Octavia was locked into chains.

"Get the key," Octavia told him, sounding like she was upset. Bellamy scrambled to unlock the chains, and Sawyer and Finn were examining the Grounder.

"Monroe, Mbege, watch the entrance!" Bellamy called, and the girl with them turned around with Mbege. _Alright, so the girl has a name._ When Bellamy finally got the chains off of Octavia, she threw her arms around him.

"It's okay, you're okay," he was telling her reassuringly, using the same voice that he used with Sawyer previously when trying to get her to calm down. Octavia looked around, letting go of Bellamy.

"How did you find me?!" Octavia asked, throwing her arms around Jasper next.

"Followed him," Jasper responded, like he was the one who did most of the work. Sawyer rolled her eyes, watching the scene unfold in front of her. Octavia looked at Sawyer like she was surprised, but turned back to look at Bellamy.

"We should go. Now. Before he wakes up," Octavia insisted, gesturing to the Grounder.

"He's not gonna wake up," Bellamy told her, moving to grab one of the spears.

"Bellamy, stop. He didn't hurt me, let's just go," Octavia was trying to grab the spear to stop Bellamy, but it didn't deter him.

"They started this. Finn. Move," Bellamy ordered, but Finn was still examining the Grounder, whereas Sawyer had taken a step away previously.

"Foghorn," Finn said quietly, looking at it on the Grounder. _So that's what blew._ Then, the Grounder revealed his consciousness by grabbing a knife and plunging it into Finn, using a different knife to slash Sawyer's thigh, knocking her down, and swinging out his legs to bring down Jasper.

Bellamy used the spear he was holding to ward off the Grounder, and Octavia ran over to help Finn, who was lying down, holding his side. The Grounder gained advantage of Bellamy, trying to use his own spear against him. Bellamy was on the ground, and Octavia started to say something, but was cut off. Sawyer had gotten up, ignoring the pain in her leg, had seized the spear that Jasper had dropped and then swung it at the back of the Grounder's head as hard as she could, which wasn't enough to knock him out, but enough for him to be disoriented so that Bellamy could knock him out. He fell to the side, and Monroe came running in at the commotion, a minute too late.

"I missed all the fun."


	11. The One with the Grounder

**A/N I got a ton of favorites and subscriptions with the past update, so thank you guys so much and I hope you continue to enjoy this story as much as I enjoy writing it.**

Now Sawyer knew another thing: Bellamy and Octavia were angry at each other. When they returned to camp with Finn, first the focus was exclusively saving Finn. They'd taken him out of Bellamy's arms immediately, and Sawyer went to sit by the gate and gestured for whoever was sitting there to leave their post as watch, happy to take the weight off of her leg. He shrugged and left, probably happy to have been relieved. Sawyer leaned against the post, suddenly feeling exhausted and hot. Figuring that it was just a side effect from the entire night spent walking, she pushed it out of her mind, and paid attention to the people that were still entering the camp. As a consequence, she was victim to the argument that ensued between the siblings. She saw Octavia start to try to leave again.

"Hey, hey," she heard Bellamy stop her. "Why were you defending him?" _Good question_.

"Because he saved my life. That spear that hit Roma was actually meant-" Octavia started, and Bellamy cut her off.

"No, you're wrong. I saved your life. For all you know, he was keeping you alive to use you as bait for one of their traps." Harsh, but true were Bellamy's words in Sawyer's opinion. She could see Octavia growing more irritated, which was causing Bellamy's irritation to increase.

"No, I don't think so," Octavia defended the Grounder again.

"You don't think, O! That's the problem. They killed 3 of our people today, and if you would have let me kill him when I had the chance, Finn wouldn't be in there dying right now." Sawyer didn't think Bellamy knew, or intentionally was blaming Octavia for Finn's likely death, but Octavia had caught onto it quickly.

"Stop it! Stop blaming me for your mistakes! What happened to Finn is not my fault. I wanted to leave, so if Finn dies in there, that's on you." Sawyer had never heard Octavia so angry. She was yelling at Bellamy, her voice going raspy with anger. She scoffed before beginning again, slightly quieter and steadily growing louder. "Everything that's gone wrong is because of you. You got me locked up on the Ark, you wanted me to go to that stupid dance, you got mom killed!" _Okay, maybe I should intervene,_ Sawyer thought, thinking that it had gone way too far. Before she could do anything, Bellamy had started talking again.

"Me?" Bellamy sounded extremely hurt, sniffling before he started talking again, sounding calmer than she knew he was. He put in his leader persona for a personal conversation with Octavia, something that Sawyer had never seen happen. "Mom was floated for having you. She's dead because you're alive. That was her choice. I didn't have a choice. My life ended the day you were born." _He's never going to be able to take that back._ Octavia obviously thought so as well. She turned and went to leave camp, and he reached out and grabbed her.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"You can't keep me locked up in here forever." Octavia ripped Bellamy's hand off of her arm and stomped away into the camp. Bellamy's face was full of regret as he turned around and saw Sawyer standing guard, obviously having heard the whole thing.

"Get inside. A storm's coming," he told Sawyer and she shook her head. "Damnit Sawyer, would you listen for once and just get inside?" Sawyer just stared at him and quirked an eyebrow, daring him to give her another order. He ran his hand through his hair, shifting uncomfortably.

"What do you want me to say?" he asked her after a minute, irritated. "That I'm sorry that I said that? Because I am. Just go to the fucking dropship, I can't deal with interpreting you right now." Sawyer shrugged, knowing that he wasn't going to let up anytime soon, and didn't feel like pissing him off more. She could practically feel the irritation radiating off of him. She walked towards the dropship, her leg forcing her to limp, and she could feel his eyes on her, making sure she went where she was supposed to go. When she disappeared into the dropship, Bellamy swore and punched the fence as hard as he could, cutting his knuckles.

"Sawyer!" Miller yelled, and she turned towards him. He was with some of Bellamy's other guys and Sawyer nodded at him. He gestured for her to come over but she shook her head, noticing that he was with Mbege and vowed to go to the opposite side of the dropship. She went up to the top level where almost nobody was, the only other person barely noticing her before staring back down at his feet. Sawyer didn't care enough to talk to, or identify, him, so she sat with her back against the wall, listening to the commotion from the floors below her. Some people were upset, some people were laughing; it was a normal day in the camp, except for the fact that it was now pouring down rain and they were all in the dropship again. She put her head on her knees, trying to stop the pounding headache that she had.

After a while of her sitting alone, Octavia was climbing up the ladder. Without noticing Sawyer, she started messing with the wiring, taking some and cutting it. When she turned around, she saw Sawyer.

"Why are you up here alone?" Octavia asked and she shrugged; the guy that was in there earlier had left at some point. Octavia looked like she wanted to say something more, but remembered that she had somewhere to go, so she started climbing down again. She heard her yell "Bellamy!"

All of the commotion halted in the ship, and it took a minute before voices floated up to the third floor, unobstructed due to the silence.

"This is not who we are," she heard Clarke saying, and someone was calling Clarke's name over a radio, which was now apparently working. Sawyer ignored the implications that had for her momentarily.

"It is now," Bellamy told her, and a minute later Miller and two other guys were hauling the Grounder into the hatch. Sawyer sat there as they tied up the grounder between two posts, Bellamy and Octavia coming up behind them. Octavia was sat down in one of the seats facing the opposite direction of the Grounder, not wanting to look.

"Woah! He's waking up!" Miller yelled as the Grounder tried to yank free, the chains clanging.

"Tie him tighter. The last thing we need is this bastard getting free because you screwed up," Bellamy ordered, and they scrambled to do so. Octavia jumped up when the Grounder had tried to yank free, and the Grounder stopped moving when he saw Octavia. He and Octavia were staring at each other, and Octavia slowly started walking towards the Grounder.

"Octavia, get out of here," Miller tried to order her, which inevitably made Octavia more angry. _Miller, don't tell girls what to do. Especially girls like Octavia_ , she told him in her head. _Especially girls that already hate you._

"I told you, he was protecting me. You didn't have to do this," Octavia told Bellamy, gesturing to the tying up of the Grounder.

"This isn't about you," Bellamy insisted, and Sawyer immediately called bullshit on that. "I'm doing this for all of us."

"You did that for all of us?" Octavia asked, her voice getting raspy again as she gestured towards the Grounder's face. Sawyer hauled herself up, immediately becoming lightheaded, so she leaned against the wall.

"No. I did that for Finn and Jasper and Diggs and Drew and Roma," Bellamy's voice steadily grew louder, which meant that Octavia was steadily growing more angry. The last thing the siblings needed was a repeat of what had happened previously, but the way that it was going, that was exactly what was going to happen.

"It wasn't even him," Octavia defended the Grounder.

"You don't know that!" Bellamy said loudly, and Octavia just nodded, trying to say that she did. "We need to know what we're up against. How many there are, and why they're killing us. And he's gonna tell us right now." Bellamy started walking towards the Grounder and Octavia reached out to grab him, trying to stop him.

"No, Bellamy, Bellamy please," she begged, and he pulled his arm out of her grasp.

"Miller, get her out of here," Bellamy ordered like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Miller immediately rushed forward to grab Octavia to pull her back.

"I was there! I - Hey- Get- get off of me!" Octavia yelled at Miller and the other guy. They backed off and Octavia looked at her brother, seething. She stood there for a minute before turning to go down the hatch. "I don't even think he speaks English. He won't understand you," she added as an afterthought. When Octavia turned, she met Sawyer's eyes, and pleaded with her mentally. Sawyer shook her head; they needed answers, they needed to figure out how to live, and if this Grounder was going to do that for them, then so be it. _I'm sorry,_ she thought, as Octavia gave her a disgusted look and went down the hatch.

"Oh, I think he will." Bellamy said, walking up to the Grounder. "Let's start with something easy. What's your name?" Before he could do anything, the entire ship shook, all of them stumbling. The Grounder jolted forward, trying to break loose again as everybody was off balanced, Sawyer falling to the ground, banging her head on the corner of the wall behind her. It made a loud noise as she gasped, grabbing the back of her head. Her vision went black for a moment. _That's definitely not going to help my headache._

"Are you okay?" Bellamy was by her side, crouching down next to her. _Wasn't he just over there?_ "Go check to see what the hell that was, and if we're under attack," Bellamy ordered one of the guards, who frantically nodded and went down the hatch, everyone else putting things back in their places. Sawyer withdrew her hand, and saw that there was blood on it. Great. Bellamy reached out to touch her head and she moved away from him. The room was spinning as she looked at him.

"Just let me look at your damn head," Bellamy grumbled and Sawyer hesitated before nodding, forcing herself to stay in place as he examined the back of her head, moving her hair to try to see. "You need to get that checked out by Clarke. You have a fever. Here." he grabbed some cloth that was laying on the ground and gave it to her to put on the back of her head, which she did. Both of them knew that she wasn't going to see Clarke immediately. They heard the guy who went down the ladder start to come up the hatch, and Bellamy jumped up.

"What the hell was that? We under attack or not?" Bellamy yelled to the guy, and Sawyer met Miller's eyes; he was looking at her sadly. She furrowed her eyebrows and he quickly looked to Bellamy and the guard.

"Storm damage. We're okay," the guard told him, and Bellamy gave Sawyer a look before his attention switched to the Grounder.

"We're gonna try this one more time. What's your name?" Bellamy asked him, getting increasingly frustrated as the Grounder didn't say anything, just staring at Bellamy. "Where's your camp? How many of you are there?"

"Hey. Check it out," Miller said, and everybody turned to look at him. He had started going through the Grounder's pack, and had a container in his hand with different small glass vials in it. "What is all this stuff?"

"Hell knows with these people," Bellamy said and started looking through the pack with him. He found a bound book and started unwrapping it, and the Grounder started trying to break out of his chains again.

"I think we found something he doesn't want us to see, Miller," Bellamy sounded proud as he started flipping through the pages. Sawyer couldn't see what the pages contained as he looked through them. "These aren't bad." he stopped on one in particular, and his jaw set as he stared at it before sharing a look with the Grounder. He turned the page and paused again, taking a breath before turning the page.

"It's our camp. I'm guessing if I counted all those marks, it would add up to 102. 10 are crossed out." everybody turned to look at him as he stood up to walk to the Grounder again. "That's how many people we've lost."

"They've been watching us ever since we got here," Bellamy told them, looking pissed off. He started flipping through the book again, and the other guard went over to help Bellamy. Miller was still crouching by the Grounder's stuff, and Sawyer was watching him, trying to figure out what that look was for. It seemed like Miller was pointedly refusing to look at her. She couldn't keep her eyes open anymore, closing them and putting her head on her knees. The room was spinning, even behind her closed eyes. Bellamy and the other guard were talking quietly with the Grounder, Sawyer not hearing anything that they were saying. She didn't know if she wanted to hear it. She heard the hatch swing open, and someone walked up. Sawyer opened her eyes to see Clarke.

"Get the hell out of my way," Clarke said angrily, glaring up at Miller. _She's not threatening, I wonder when she'll realize that. Bellamy's men only listen to Bellamy._

"It's okay, let her through," Bellamy told him, and Miller stepped out of the way. Clarke surveyed the scene in front of her, taking note of the Grounder's injuries.

"Well, if he didn't hate us before, he does now," Clarke said to Bellamy, sounding annoyed with him. Bellamy sighed and pulled her to the side.

"Who cares?" he asked her. Sawyer started to get up, wanting to get out before she listened to Bellamy have yet another fight that day, but couldn't hold her balance, so she sat back down. "Look at Sawyer's head while you're up here." Clarke glanced over at Sawyer sitting on the ground who shrugged. Clarke looked back at Bellamy, who looked increasingly annoyed that she didn't do what he'd said. Sawyer tried to pull herself up and failed.

"His people will care. How long until they figure out where he is? And what happens when they do? I mean, when they come looking for him? They will, Bellamy."

"Relax, princess. No one saw us take him. He was chained up in that cave the entire time and thanks to the storm, we didn't see a soul on the way back. In case you missed it, his people are already killing us." they were silent for a moment, and Sawyer saw Clarke staring at the notebook, the storm making loud crashing noises against the dropship. "How many more of our people need to die until you realize we're fighting a war?" Sawyer tried to get herself up again, but collapsed, not being able to catch herself. She tried to open her eyes but the room hadn't stopped spinning, making her nauseated. Distantly hearing someone call her name, she fell unconscious.

As soon as Sawyer fell, Raven yelled up to Clarke that Finn had started seizing. Almost like clockwork, Sawyer did as well.

"Sawyer!" Bellamy yelled, dropping the book and rushing over to her. Octavia climbed up the hatch as quickly as she could and ran over to Sawyer. Bellamy asked Octavia, "What's going on?"

"I don't know what- she's seizing," Octavia muttered, staring at her. Trying to recall one of the medical books that she'd read when she was back on the Ark, she squeezed her eyes closed tightly.

"O, what do we do?"

"I'm _thinking,_ " Octavia snapped at him, both of them ignoring the situation with the Grounder. Octavia looked at her brother and saw fear in his eyes. She remembered suddenly. "Get her on her side." Bellamy shifted her onto her side immediately, Octavia moving so that Sawyer's back could prop up against Octavia's knees. After she stopped seizing, Octavia grabbed the forgotten blood stained cloth that Sawyer was holding against her head and used it to wipe the fluid that was coming out of her mouth. Both of them looked helplessly at her. Clarke walked up the hatch at that moment, storming over to the Grounder.

"What's on this?" Bellamy got up, going over to where she was.

"What are you talking about?"

"He poisoned the blade," Clarke snapped at him, and he looked at Sawyer immediately.

"Octavia, was she cut?" Bellamy asked her, and she shook her head.

"I- I don't know," she admitted, and started looking Sawyer over.

"Find out," Bellamy barked at her and she narrowed her eyes at him.

"You don't think I'm trying to?!" Octavia exclaimed, her voice higher pitched than usual and Bellamy ignored her.

"You had to have been cut, you don't seize for no reason," Octavia muttered to Sawyer as she was checking her over. Sawyer gained the slightest bit of consciousness at that moment, and she could hear Octavia speak like she was underwater. Her hands brushed along her thigh and she jerked her leg away out of reflex. "Gotcha. She's cut."

"Bellamy-" Miller started. Every noise sounded muffled, and she couldn't open her eyes.

"I'm getting that antidote," Bellamy spoke, and Sawyer just noticed that someone was stroking her hair. No- moving it away from the cut, she could tell by the pain flooding her body when their hand grazed it.

"Bellamy, no-" Octavia was saying, and Sawyer heard footsteps pounding, shaking her body slightly.

"He wants Sawyer to die, why can't you see that?" Bellamy yelled at Octavia, sounding vaguely frantic, and Sawyer fell unconscious.

"We're talking about Sawyer's life!" Bellamy's yell brought her back to consciousness.

"And Finn's," Clarke added.

"Just tell us!" Octavia sounded like she was directly above her, and she realized that it must've been Octavia who was still touching her head, her hand slightly shaking. It was a minute before she heard anything else. She heard footsteps and Bellamy's voice, too quiet for her to understand what he was saying.

"Bellamy, no, please," Sawyer heard Octavia say; it sounded like she was crying. She started fading in and out, hearing bits and pieces as she rolled onto her back.

Fade in. "Enough!" Octavia screamed. Fade out.

Fade in. She heard someone groaning loudly in pain. Fade out.

Fade in. "Bellamy, stop!" Octavia was pleading, and Sawyer felt something take over her body. Fade out.

"She's seizing!" Miller yelled, running from his position next to the Grounder to go to Sawyer. Octavia looked torn, looking in between the Grounder, Bellamy, and Sawyer. Clarke ran over to help Sawyer during her seizure, Octavia staying put, both of the Blakes staring at her from a distance.

"Bellamy, we need that antidote," Clarke told him, feeling her face. Her complexion was washed out, and she was clammy and feverish, unconscious once more. "And fast."

"He's getting worse!" Raven yelled up the hatch. Clarke was giving Bellamy a look, and Octavia reached out her hand to try to stop them.

"We're running out of time," Clarke affirmed, moving back over to the Grounder and Bellamy.

"There has to be another way," Octavia tried saying, and Bellamy shook his head. "I want her to live just as much as you do-"

"No, you don't," Bellamy interrupted Octavia, steeling himself before swinging the seat belt again. Octavia put her hands over her mouth and sobbed. _I don't just want her to live, I need her to live,_ Bellamy thought to himself, using that thought to propel him forward, forcing him to ignore his sister.

"She's not breathing!" Miller yelled to them.

Sawyer faded back in. "He's all I have!" Raven was screaming. Fade out.

Fade in. "No more!" Octavia yelled. Fade out.

"He won't let me die," Octavia told herself, sliding the blade of the poisoned knife down her forearm.

"Octavia, no!" Bellamy tried to stop her from doing it, which made Octavia want to do it more.

"He won't let me die," she repeated, this time staring at the grounder, and moved to go to the vials.

"Octavia, what the hell did you-" Bellamy tried to grab her to help her and she contorted her body to avoid his grip, and started tapping the knife above one of the vials.

"This one?" she asked, and when he didn't say anything, she moved to a different vial. Octavia was staring at him for affirmation, and he gestured his head to the far left. Octavia immediately scooped it up, showing it to him. "This one?" the Grounder nodded and Octavia handed the vial to Clarke, who immediately rushed over to Sawyer's side after thanking Octavia. Octavia wrapped her arm in a cloth to stop the bleeding.

Clark tipped Sawyer's head back and poured the antidote down her throat, plugging her nose and covering her mouth so she couldn't breathe, forcing her to swallow it. She started coughing violently, and Clarke rushed away from her side and down the hatch to help Finn, as Octavia left to avoid further interaction with Bellamy, giving a lingering look to the Grounder.


	12. The One with the Concussion

Sawyer woke up coughing violently. Her entire body _hurt_ \- her head was killing her, her lungs ached, her thigh was burning, and her eyes were currently being assaulted by a bright light. She jerked away, grabbing the hand of the person and twisting it.

"Let go!" she heard Clarke yell, and Sawyer's fingers were pried off. Oh, so it was the princess' hand she tried to break. Of course. She should've applied more pressure. "She'll be fine," Clarke grumbled.

"She tries to break your hand, and that equates to being fine?" she heard Finn ask.

"I'd expect nothing less," Bellamy spoke, and it sounded like he was directly next to her. She went to turn her head and pain shot through her body. "Don't move your head. You have stitches." _Lovely._

"Sawyer? Open your eyes," Clarke spoke, and she debated not doing it just because Clarke said so.

"Stop being so damn stubborn," Bellamy grumbled. "She's trying to help you." She begrudgingly did so, blinking to try to get used to them being open. She looked around to see that she was in the dropship, and Finn was on the metal table next to her, which meant she was in the medical section. "You have stitches in your head, a cut on your thigh, and you were poisoned. You need to rest." _The only time I actually want to do what she says._

"How long until she can get up?" Bellamy asked her, and Sawyer's eyes shot to him, the lagging behind of her vision giving her a headache. He was looking at Clarke, but Sawyer studied him. He had dark circles under his eyes, and looked exhausted. The leadership role at the camp was taking a toll on him, and wondered how long she'd been passed out. _Why do I care? According to him, I don't give a fuck about any of them._

"A day, maybe. It depends on the way that her body reacts to the antidote. It's only been 12 hours, give it time," she heard Clarke say, but she didn't turn to look at her. She kept staring at Bellamy, trying to figure him out. When he looked back at her, she blinked at him, and her eyes almost didn't open again. She'd been awake for less than 10 minutes and she was already exhausted.

"Thank you for not dying," he heard Bellamy mutter for only her to hear. "I already lost my sister…" he trailed off, but Sawyer didn't hear the last part, because she'd already fallen back asleep. Realizing that she'd fallen asleep again, Bellamy got up to meet up with Clarke. When Sawyer opened her eyes again, Octavia that was sitting next to her. She looked up at the girl, who looked mildly surprised that she was awake.

"You're up." Sawyer didn't say anything, and Octavia sighed. "Right. Your whole "vow of silence" thing since Charlotte died. I know it sucks, but you're going to have to get over it sometime." Sawyer closed her eyes again, clenching her jaw.

"Shit. I'm sorry, Sawyer. It's just… Bellamy makes me so mad. He tries to control me constantly, and that Grounder up there saved me. He thinks he did me a favor by keeping him alive, but he saved my life, the least I can do is save his. I know he tried to kill you, but he's different," Octavia was ranting, and Sawyer looked up at her, wanting to move but feeling weighed down by the pulsating pain running through her head. "I'm going to get him out of here. I know you're not going to tell anybody, but everybody thinks I'm going to be watching over you, making sure you don't move and changing your bandages like a good girl." Sawyer applauded the girl in her head for her guts; she didn't have a problem risking her life, or going against her brother to do so.

"Your lover is being a dick, too. Yelled at me earlier when I was up there." Sawyer rose her eyebrows at her. "Miller. He's in love with you, Sawyer. Everybody sees it. He wouldn't move until Bellamy made him go up into the hatch to keep watch. Personally, I think that Bellamy just didn't want him to stay down here with you." Octavia laughed. "You should've seen the way he was when you first started seizing, and when they brought you down here. He was freaking out, I was the only person that could see it. He was being silent, and you know by now that him being silent doesn't mean anything good. Clarke tried to kick him out but he wouldn't leave, just stood over there, watching as Clarke stitched you up. He didn't want to let you out of his sight. I told you that he's in love with you. I'm mad at him, but he's my brother, Sawyer." the hatch banged open and Miller came walking down, looking determined. He didn't look at either Sawyer nor Octavia.

"Of course it makes sense, I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner. I know, it clouds my judgement. I know. I know. I remember," Miller was talking with pauses, like he was having a conversation with someone. A someone that wasn't there. Sawyer thought that she must've been imagining things before Octavia winked at her.

"That's my cue. See you in a bit," Octavia sounded scared, but squeezed Sawyer's hand and left her side. Sawyer hadn't realized that Octavia was holding her hand. _I must really be out of it._ Octavia stopped for a second, turning around to look at her.

"For the record, I know you care." Sawyer fell unconscious again, and when she woke up again, Octavia was sitting next to her.

"I did it," Octavia muttered to Sawyer. "His name is Lincoln, and he speaks English. He's amazing, Sawyer. He makes me feel things that I've never felt before, he's nothing like… Like Atom." Octavia hesitated before saying his name; the wound was still fresh, even if the fling was short. Sawyer fell back asleep as Octavia stopped talking and switched to humming. When Sawyer woke up in the middle of the night, it wasn't Octavia sitting with her, but Bellamy. And someone was poking at her head. It didn't hurt as much as it'd hurt previously.

"Has she moved all day?" she heard Clarke ask.

"No. She's been out," she heard Octavia respond. "Will she be okay?"

"She'll be fine. Sawyer, I need you to sit up," she heard Clarke say loudly, and Sawyer resisted snapping at her that she was injured, not an idiot. She tried to push herself up, but was incredibly weak. Someone was putting their arm under her back, helping her sit up. Sawyer looked and it was Bellamy, who was focused on Clarke instead of her. _Of course it's Bellamy, it's always Bellamy._ Clarke helped her drink something, and then told Bellamy that he could lay her back down.

"You're sleeping so much because of your head wound. When the effect from that wears off, you should be up and walking in no time," Clarke told her, giving her a smile. Sawyer's blank expression didn't change, and Clarke's smile dropped, setting down the cup that she was making Sawyer drink from. "I'm trying to help you. The least you could do is be grateful."

"Clarke, get out," Bellamy ordered her, and Clarke looked like she wanted to say something more, but left. Octavia left soon after her, smiling triumphantly at Sawyer. As soon as they left, Bellamy's face dropped. He ran his hand through his hair and put his forehead down next to her arm, heaving a sigh. They were silent until Bellamy mumbled something that she couldn't hear. Sawyer fought with herself internally, before reaching up and putting a hand on his shoulder, trying to bring some sort of comfort to the obvious emotional turmoil he was experiencing. Bellamy jumped and looked at her before his gaze dropped to look at the table, and she quickly retracted her hand. His elbows were on it, and his head was cradled in his hands.

"I'm a monster," Bellamy told her, or told the table. He was refusing to look at her, but kept talking. "I hallucinated, saw my mother… if she knew what I've done, who I am - she raised me to be better, to be good. And all I do is hurt people. I'm a monster. Clarke wants me to talk to Jaha, says that he'll pardon me, but that doesn't change the 300 people that have died because of me. And all of the people who've died here, following me." _Why are you telling me this if you think I don't care about you?_

"No," Sawyer tried to say, but she couldn't get anything out. Something about Bellamy made her want to talk, to console him almost. She pushed that thought out of her mind and cleared her throat, which caused her to cough. Bellamy grabbed the cup and she drank, annoyed that she couldn't do it herself. "We're alive because of you." Only Bellamy could make her actually want to talk, even if she could barely whisper.

"Are we?" Bellamy kept refusing to look her in the eye. "Because all I see are the people that are dead. Every time I close my eyes, I see their death, that I could've prevented. Octavia hates me, you're hurt. Dax, Atom, Charlotte, Wells, Drew, Diggs, Roma, hell, even Murphy-"

"Stop," Sawyer tried to order him, but her voice barely came out again. "Their blood is not on your hands."

"Yes, it is-"

"Do you want forgiveness?" she interrupted him, and he finally looked her in the eyes. He looked so conflicted, and in so much pain. He swallowed and put his elbows on the table, his head dropping into his hands. He didn't reply for several minutes and she didn't continue the thought.

"I killed a man today," Bellamy told her, and she finally realized why he was so torn up. It was the first death that he'd physically done; everybody else he thought was dead because of him, but he'd actually killed a man.

"Why?" Sawyer asked when he didn't say anything more.

"He tried to kill me," Bellamy gave her the information. Sawyer closed her eyes, not knowing what to say. It wasn't his fault; it was either kill or be killed. It wasn't cold blooded murder. She opened her eyes after a minute. His head was still on his arms.

"You would be dead now if you didn't," she told him, and he looked her dead in the eyes.

"Wouldn't that be better?" he asked, and she thought that she saw tears welling up in his eyes.

"No," she responded immediately. "No." Sawyer hesitated, placing her hand on his cheek. He blinked slowly, looking exhausted.

"I almost got you killed."

"You failed." Sawyer was starting to get uncomfortable; he looked like he was seconds away from crying again and she couldn't deal with crying people. They sat there in silence for a while, and Bellamy grabbed the hand on his cheek and took it in his.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, and she could barely hear him.

"You're forgiven. For all of it." they stayed like that for a while before Sawyer's eyes started drifting closed again, the pain in her head overtaking her.

 **A/N Short and sweet. Let me know what you think.**


	13. The One with the Letter

**A/N This is a sort of combo chapter, a filler with some depressing stuff and some cute stuff. Enjoy.**

Sawyer was finally walking around again, glad that she didn't need someone else's help to do things for her, when some kid had to ruin it.

"You're Sawyer, right?" the girl asked, and she nodded while looking at him strangely. What does he want with her? "Someone wants to talk to you on the radio." She gave him a stranger look, and he gestured towards the tent that people were talking to their family in. Her family had deserted her when everything happened, and there was no way that they would ever talk to her again. She walked towards the tent with a slight limp, sitting to notice that it was Kane on the other side of the monitor. Sawyer strongly considered not picking up the headpiece before slipping it over her head.

"Sawyer Mason?" she nodded. "You look different not covered in the blood of 4 of my guardsmen." Sawyer resisted showing any sort of expression to him, which obviously displeased him. "I see 4 years in solitary hasn't changed you at all. Personally, I'm upset that you're not dead yet."

"Are you done?" Sawyer snapped, and he just rose an eyebrow at her condescendingly.

"Not quite. I'm here to tell you that your parents volunteered for the Culling." when she didn't react, he kept talking while unfolding a piece of paper. Sawyer didn't know what to say - her parents were dead. Knowing that they didn't want to talk to her or acknowledge her existence was one thing, but they were dead. Gone. "They wanted me to deliver a message to you. I'll read it to you.

" _Sawyer,_

 _We are volunteering for the Culling because there is nothing left for us. You stopped being our daughter the day you decided to kill those men, for reasons we cannot even begin to fathom. We didn't raise you this way. The only thing we have to say to you is that we hope that nobody else suffers at the hand of you, which only brings destruction. If you knew how much you would hurt your mother and I that day, maybe you would have given it a second thought, but you are no longer who we raised you to be. We loved that girl, the one we raised and nurtured and provided for; we do not love you, the murderer. Your mother does not know that I am writing this, but I wanted to write this to let you know why you will not be seeing us when everybody goes down to Earth. I want you to know that it is your fault, because we do not want to be seeing who is supposed to be our daughter._

 _Jack Mason_

"Quite the loving parents you've got there, Sawyer. Or had," Kane sighed while folding the piece of paper back up neatly. "Does anybody know who you are?" Sawyer shook her head. "Unsurprising. We figured that you wouldn't want people to know that you're a murderer. That will change when the Ark comes down. In my eyes, Sawyer Mason, you will never be pardoned. You will never be forgiven." At that, Sawyer took off her headpiece and set it on the table, not caring about what he had to say any longer.

She left the tent, the words he spoke still floating around in her brain. _We do not want to be seeing who is supposed to be our daughter… we do not love you… you will never be pardoned, you will never be forgiven._ Sawyer bumped into somebody and went to sidestep them, not looking up. They put their hands on her shoulders.

"Hey," she heard Miller say, and she looked up at him. He was staring at her with his brow furrowed, trying to examine her. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," Sawyer tried to say, but he didn't believe her, scoffing. _We do not love you._

"Like hell you are. What happened in there?" Miller asked, squeezing her shoulders to try to get her attention. She brushed his hands off of her shoulders. "I didn't know you have family left."

"I don't," Sawyer snapped at him. "They volunteered for the Culling." Miller looked at her with pity in his eyes, along with confusion.

"Why would they do that? Why wouldn't they want to see you?" Miller asked, but it was more of a musing than a question directed at her.

"' _We do not love you'_ were the exact words," Sawyer revealed to him, and Miller looked at her with surprise, like he didn't know what to say. She didn't blame him; she didn't know what to say herself. How does one react when they learned that their parents would rather die than see them again?

"Fuck them," Miller told her. _Apparently, they react like that_. "Seriously, fuck them. If they don't want to come down here and see you, fine, their loss. But writing a letter? That's cowardly shit. And reading that to you was a dick move. Fuck them." Sawyer knew that Miller loved to swear but she hadn't heard him say so many at one time. She also hadn't seen him look as pissed off as was at that point.

"It's nothing new," she told him, and he shook his head.

"Doesn't matter. Fuck them. Come on, Monty made some moonshine," Miller guided her to where people were gathering, Jasper pouring out the moonshine for people. Miller let Jasper pour him some, and Sawyer took the cup from him eagerly. She took a swig, coughing slightly. Miller laughed at her, grabbing another cup for himself, and they sat down in a group of people that Miller lead them to. She'd never talked to half of the people, but figured she'd just sit there drinking her alcohol. She sipped as she listened to them talk, telling each other stories. Everybody had moved on from asking how they'd gotten locked up, Sawyer passing on that, and Monty was telling the story of what happened the first time they got high.

"We were laying on the floor of my room," Monty was saying, "and all of a sudden Jasper just starts laughing as hard as he can. I'm asking him why he is laughing and he finally calms down enough to tell me, 'imagine how the first people had sex. Like, did they just look and go 'oh, this fits', and then wonder why she was getting fat?'" People started laughing, and it was obvious that most of the people were too drunk to realize that it wasn't all that great of a story. Sawyer smiled a bit at Miller laughing; he almost never full-blown laughed, and this was one of those times. When he noticed Sawyer looking at him he grinned at her, throwing his arm around her. He was definitely more drunk than she was. She brushed his arm off of her shoulder and he pouted. Before he could try to do it again, Sawyer stood up quickly, stumbling a bit. _Woah._ Maybe she was a bit more drunk than she thought. She saw Bellamy standing by the gate, watching her, and decided that she was going to go over and talk to him, because he looked lonely. It was definitely easier said than done. Walking while drunk was hard, but walking while drunk with a limp made her almost fall over several times. She was concentrating on her walking, but was stopped after a minute by a girl who put her arm out.

"Hey, can I talk to you?" her eyes were darting around, and Sawyer couldn't help but think that she looked a bit familiar as she examined her. She had common dark brown hair and eyes, but there was _something_ about her that she couldn't put her finger on. Sawyer nodded. The girl looked at her surroundings before gesturing for Sawyer to follow her. She walked to the edge of the camp and opened the flap to her tent. Sawyer shook her head and the girl sighed.

"I don't want to talk about this in the open," she said quietly, and Sawyer shrugged before following her in. The girl paced a little bit.

"Do you know who I am?" Sawyer shook her head, and the girl sighed, putting her hands on her hips. "The people here know me as Bree. My name is Carina. Carina Kane." Sawyer turned around to walk out of the tent, not wanting anything to do with the girl standing in front of her. Her father had already brought enough pain on her life, she didn't need his daughter to do so as well.

"Stop, please, Sawyer," Carina grabbed her arm and she ripped it away from her, stumbling a bit.

"No, I don't want anything to do with you," Sawyer told her, hatred seeping from her voice. She couldn't see her, but as she was walking away, she heard crying.

"Please," Carina choked out. "I have no one." Sawyer hesitated before ducking out of the tent, ignoring the girl behind her, and going back on her path to find Bellamy, erasing the girl from her mind as she approached the gate.

"You okay there?" she heard Bellamy laughing at her, and she tilted her head up and smiled at him. "Having fun?"

"Sure," she agreed, and noticed that he wasn't drinking, or looking inebriated in the slightest. "Why aren't you?"

"I'm having fun," he defended. "Watching you is amusement enough for the night." Sawyer pouted at this and he laughed again. "You've definitely had enough." he took the cup away from her and she just nodded. Sawyer felt a wave of sadness flood over her, and she started staring at the ground, her brow furrowing. They stood there for a moment, Bellamy waiting for her to talk first for once, mostly because he'd never dealt with emotions from her before.

"My parents don't love me," she muttered and looked up, her eyes a mile away. Once she started talking, she couldn't stop. "They volunteered for the Culling and they wrote a letter and said that they didn't love me and that I wasn't their daughter and that they didn't want to come down here and see the person that's supposed to be their daughter and that I stopped being their daughter-"

"Woah, woah, woah," Bellamy interrupted her and he thought that if it was anyone other than Sawyer, then he would have to deal with a crying drunk on his hands, but he had to stop her. He could only process things so quickly. "Your parents what?"

"They're dead," she said frustrated - she'd already said that, wasn't he listening?

"And they wrote you a letter."

"Yes."

"That said they didn't love you."

"Yes." Sawyer felt like he was the drunk one, not her, because he wasn't processing anything that she was saying. Why was he just repeating things? She was getting frustrated again, and crossed her arms. Bellamy decided that he'd rather deal with the frustrated Sawyer.

"Why?"

"Because I'm not their daughter anymore," she said quietly, looking back at the ground. "They didn't want to come down and see me, because I'm not the person they raised me up to be. Apparently they didn't raise a murderer, like that's what I wanted to be." she laughed sadly, shaking her head and running her hand through her hair. "I didn't want them to hurt me."

"Who hurt you?" she didn't answer his question, lost in thought. Bellamy wasn't surprised. "How do you know this?" Bellamy tried asking, and Sawyer had to think about it. How did she know that her parents wrote her a letter? _Oh yeah, right, Kane._

"Kane."

"He read you the letter saying that your parents don't love you?" Bellamy asked incredulously, and Sawyer nodded. Bellamy shook his head. "What a dick." Sawyer mumbled something under her breath that he couldn't hear. "What?"

" _You will never be pardoned, you will never be forgiven_ ," Sawyer recited, her eyes looking far off again. Bellamy had to say her name several times before he got her to focus in on him again.

"Did your parents say that?"

"No - Kane said that, to me," Sawyer told him, and her eyes suddenly got wide. "I need to leave."

"No," Bellamy said quickly. "No."

"They'll kill me when they come down, I need to leave," Sawyer told him, shaking her head and turning to walk back towards camp. Bellamy grabbed her arm to make her stop walking, and she stumbled. The world was still spinning, and she had to focus hard on what Bellamy was saying.

"You can't leave, Sawyer. Absolutely not."

"They'll kill me," Sawyer told him, and he shook his head. She blinked hard to try to stay focused after that movement, the movement causing her head to spin..

"They're not going to kill you. I won't let them kill you." Bellamy sounded extremely serious and Sawyer shook her head, her head spinning again.

"But I killed them," she said quietly, and his expression didn't change. Her eyes were wide, and Bellamy saw the fire reflecting off of the green.

"I don't give a fuck. You did what you had to do to survive, and I'm going to do what I have to to make sure that wasn't for nothing." Sawyer cocked her head to the side. She didn't respond for a minute, just looking at him, examining him.

"You're cuter when you're not all serious and leader-y," she informed him, still examining his face. In the back of her mind she knew that she would regret saying it, but she felt like it was the right thing to say at the time. After all, it was her opinion, and she should voice her opinion. He was shocked and his serious face fell, making Sawyer more content. She smiled, and he shook his head at her.

"You're bombed," he said to her, and she shook her head. The action made her world spin again, and she stood there for a second before nodding. "Jordan, take watch."

"Gotcha," she heard someone call back to him, and then she was being carried - it happened so quickly that she didn't have a chance to protest, and Bellamy was carrying her towards her tent.

"Where are we going?" she asked him, looking up at the stubble that was growing on his chin.

" _You_ are going to bed."

"I don't want to." Bellamy ignored that and Sawyer pouted, crossing her arms. Bellamy looked down at her and laughed, shaking his head. He never thought he'd ever see her, Sawyer, pouting. Then again, he never thought he'd hear her ramble either. Bringing her into her tent, he put her down on her makeshift bed and went to leave and she grabbed his shirt.

"No- stay," she asked, sounding the most sober that he'd heard since she'd walked up to him.

"You're drunk," he told her, and she nodded.

"I know, and I want you to stay," she locked eyes with him. He sighed, and nodded, sitting down next to her bed. Sawyer just kept blinking up at him, and he cocked an eyebrow. Moving over so that the side of the bed was free, she gestured for him to get into bed with her. He shook his head.

"Sawyer, I'm not-"

"I don't want to. I need someone," she muttered the last part, and if she was sober, she would be repulsed by how pathetic she sounded, but Kane's words just kept echoing in her head. _You will never be pardoned. You will never be forgiven_. After hesitating, he nodded, apprehensively laying down. She curled up next to him to get comfortable; she didn't touch him, nor try to cuddle with him. She couldn't explain it, she just wanted him to lay there with her. She looked up and he was looking down at her. "What?" He sighed.

"Just go to sleep."

"Yes, Chief," Sawyer muttered and tried to sleep, listening to the sound of Bellamy breathing to calm her and lull her to sleep. Bellamy was looking down at her, turning onto his side to brush his hand through her hair, but paused, not wanting to wake her up. At his movement, Sawyer moved closer, her forehead pressing against his chest and her head on his arm. Bellamy sighed and ran his fingers through her hair anyways, since it was obvious that she wasn't going to wake up at it. He looked down at her before shaking his head.

"I'm fucked."


	14. The One with the Confession

**A/N This chapter contains two of the first scenes I ever wrote for this story, and it's the longest as of right now (this chapter makes this fic 55k+ words). I'm excited to see what you guys think of this one.**

Sawyer was woken up by the excitement running through the camp, more so than usual. It was running through the campers, and when she left her tent, she realized why - it was Unity Day. The celebration happened every year on the Ark, and it'll be her first Unity Day in 4 years. And she was beginning it with a terrible headache and a turning stomach from the night before.

 _What even happened last night?_ Sawyer asked herself, and she was trying to concentrate but all that it did was worsen her headache. She grabbed her water and drank all of it quickly, wanting nothing more than to stay in bed the entire day. Frowning when she realized she needed more water, she decided to get up, attempting to run her fingers through her hair to calm it. The sun was blinding when she pulled her tent open, and it worsened her headache tenfold. Sawyer was strongly debating going back to sleep. There wasn't any work getting done that day; it was Unity Day.

"Hey, you're up!" Miller sounded way too happy for that morning. Sawyer pressed her fingers to her temple to try to ease the throbbing, causing Miller to laugh at her. "Drank a little too much? Me too. Don't remember the second half of the night, but I woke up next to a girl so not too bad. Heard Bellamy went back to your tent with you though. I mean, I know you need to let off tension but you could've picked better." He spoke teasingly, but she could hear the underlying tones of jealousy in his voice and remembered all of the times Octavia told her that Miller had a thing for her. _Oh god, when did this happen?_

"Like you?" Sawyer asked, filling her water and downing it. Miller left in a huff, and Sawyer knew it was bitchy, but didn't care. He woke up next to a girl, so obviously he could get over it. She was trying to remember, did Bellamy go back with her? He wasn't there when she woke up, but -

 _Fuck._ She remembered. Sawyer was embarrassed with her drunk self, being carried and calling him cute and begging him to stay. Who was she? _Oh god. I pretty much told him why I'm down here. I'm never getting drunk again._

"Sawyer?" Sawyer heard a small voice, and she turned to see Carina - Bree - whoever the fuck this girl was, walking up to her. Sawyer took a deep breath, running her hand through her hair. She knew that being a criminal changed everybody, and it obviously changed the girl in front of her. She looked slightly like Kane, but now that Sawyer could really look, she only showed very trace amounts of Kane. Bree - she decided to call her Bree - was very plain looking, and it was obvious how she blended into everything. She was currently shifting from foot to foot, looking around at the people who were looking at her. "I know you stormed out, but I want to talk to you. I want to be friends." She was, however, definitely as blunt as her father was.

"Fine," Sawyer said after a minute of contemplation. She couldn't hate Bree for her father, and Bree was willing to talk to her even though she likely knew everything that happened, so why couldn't she?

Actually, there were a lot of reasons why she shouldn't. She was growing soft. Bree's face lit up when Sawyer said that, and she almost started bouncing. Sawyer had a hard time believing that this girl was related to Kane - she looked like she enjoyed life too much.

"Let's get food?" Sawyer nodded at Bree's question, and the girls walked over to grab food together. It was weird for Sawyer, and obviously weird for everyone else, for her to be around anyone that wasn't Miller, or even Octavia and Bellamy. The two sat next to each other in silence, Sawyer having no desire to speak first, her head still killing her. Bree eventually offered her reason for getting locked up.

"One of the guards were being particularly rude to me one day, so I broke into his room and stole his prized bottle of scotch. Got half of it down with my friend, Madeline, before my father came back and caught me. Locked both of us up," Bree smiled at the memory, before her face fell a bit. "Mads was older than me, and she was let out a few months ago, so she didn't come down when we did." Sawyer nodded, only half listening. She was watching Bellamy from across the camp, and he stayed across the camp no matter what. Bree eventually left to do something else, Sawyer never really paying attention to what she was saying, and getting to work herself.

Sawyer came to the conclusion that Bellamy was avoiding her. Which she was perfectly fine with, because she was avoiding him. Or, at least, making it seem like she was too busy to have time to talk to him. Until he walked up to her in the middle of the day, his face stony. Sawyer was forced to tear her eyes away from Bree, who was talking to her about the different guard training on the Ark, but she'd stopped talking as soon as Bellamy started approaching them. Bree's head dropped, her hair covering her face; Sawyer remembered that Bellamy used to be a guard, so Bree was being cautious about the possibility of him recognizing her. Smart.

"You're on security detail tonight. Think you can manage not to get plastered again?" he asked condescendingly, and she rolled her eyes.

"Fuck off." Bellamy didn't say anything about her response and just walked away, which surprised her, but figured he just didn't know what to say. She didn't either.

"Did you sleep with my brother?" Octavia appeared from behind her, and Sawyer saw Bree walk away out of the corner of her eye. Sawyer shook her head in disagreement. At least, she's pretty sure she didn't sleep with him. "Good, he's a dick." _She needs to decide if she wants me to avoid or to sleep with Bellamy._ She looked around before gesturing for Sawyer to follow her. They went to a more secluded part of camp, and Octavia made sure again that they weren't followed, and there wasn't anybody close enough to hear her.

"I need you to distract him tonight, after dark." Sawyer rose an eyebrow. Octavia sighed, messing with her hair. "I'm meeting Lincoln, and the last thing I need is Bellamy on my ass. Pretend like you don't know how to shoot, get in an argument with him. I don't care, just make sure he doesn't see me leave." Sawyer shrugged, not bothering to push Octavia. Her demeanor had changed recently. She wasn't the girl she was when they first landed; she was hardened. She was angry constantly, and had a wall up that seemed impermeable. Sawyer wondered if that's what people thought when they looked at her; or, maybe not recently. Sawyer didn't know too much about herself anymore. Octavia half smiled at her before leaving. Sawyer went to go sit with Miller, who was sitting with a couple of other guys. One of them sat down next to her, holding a bottle.

"Hey!" She could tell that he was already drunk, but not extremely. "I'm Keegan."

"Sawyer," she nodded at him, and he grinned at her. His blonde hair reflected the light, and he had bright eyes. He might've been attractive, but she didn't care about him enough to try to think about it, turning her head to pay attention to Miller, who was sitting directly across from her.

"So," he started. "I have a bet going on." he paused, like he was expecting her to ask what it was, but when she didn't, he continued talking, even though she obviously didn't care. Sawyer turned her head to look at him. "Well, most of us do. We have a bet to see if you're going to sleep with Miller or our fearless King first. See, I'm saying Bellamy, but some are saying both. I want your input on this." Miller looked at him incredulously, obviously having no idea of what he was going to say. The people around them started laughing, and Sawyer stood up, unsure of what to do in this situation, feeling humiliated. Before she could think about it, she swung back her elbow that was in line with his nose, and she heard a crack. Without waiting for a response, she left, feeling like the group was closing in on her. Is that all that she was reduced to? Just that girl that was going to fuck one of two guys?

The thought made her feel nauseous, and she was shaking as she moved her hair away from her face. She went to the gate, relieving Carter early, needing something to do. _I need to do something about this, but what is there to do?_ Carter handed her the gun that he was guarding with, no arguments from him were heard. He likely wanted to just get drunk with everyone else. She sat with her knife in her hand and took her typical guard spot just outside of the wall, watching the teenagers devolve around her. Monty's moonshine spread quickly, and it looked like everyone was having some, even the Princess was having a drink. She didn't know where Bellamy was, and tried not to care. Her head hurt just thinking about drinking that shit again, and took a drink of her water.

"Is Bellamy avoiding you?" Sawyer heard someone ask, and her head turned quickly to see Octavia standing behind the gate, hidden from view. Sawyer shrugged. _Probably_. "Okay, whatever. I'm leaving." She disappeared after that, and Sawyer didn't know why Octavia was telling her that. She didn't know what to think about the Grounder. Octavia obviously trusted him, and Octavia was one of the only people Sawyer trusted, at least a little bit. Sawyer pretended she didn't see the Spacewalker leave to follow Octavia.

It was a long time before she was disturbed after that, most of the camp in bed after being drunk off of their asses, when someone sat a few feet away from her. She looked over, shocked when she saw that it was Mbege. After avoiding him the entire time, there was no reason for him to be out there with her. The stench of alcohol was also radiating off of him.

"You know," he started talking, looking out straight into the trees instead of at her. Sawyer shifted so that she was sitting on the outside of the gate, her back facing the camp. Currently, she needed to keep Mbege in sights more than the wasted campers. "I couldn't figure out how I knew you. 'Sawyer' isn't exactly a common name, so I asked around a bit, and nobody really seemed to know much about you. Anything about you, actually. There's only one reason that would be, which is that you have been in solitary confinement, and for a long time." He wasn't asking a question, so Sawyer didn't respond to him. Her mind was racing; he'd finally made the connection, and there were very few outcomes that this could have. Her hand tightened on the knife.

"But then why wouldn't people know who you are? I heard you saying that you've been locked up for 4 years. Solitary confinement for 4 years, they'd only do that if they really hated someone. If they knew they were going to float them before they even locked them away." He took her silence as a confirmation. Mbege's voice lowered and got thicker.

"The night before my father died, he had dinner with us like usual, but he'd brought home a large slice of chocolate cake. Said it was in honor of something that his people had done that day. We laughed as we ate it and he told us stories that I'd heard ten times, but still loved to hear. He told me that he loves me, and did the same for my mom. I was only 12, and thought that it was weird, because no 12 year old likes hearing their father tell them they love them. It's weird, right? So I didn't say it back. They found him the next day in a pool of his own blood, with 3 other guards, some of my father's closest friends. They were like family. A guard knocked on the door and broke the news to my mom, who was crying too much to say anything to me, so the guard told me.

"After a while, she asked the guard if they'd caught the person who did it. He said they'd caught her, and that since she was under 18, she would be in lockup, but assured us that the Council had already decided to float her on her 18th birthday. And you're 18 now, right? We came down here right before your birthday." Mbege was looking at her now, a trace amount of tears in his eyes. Sawyer's mind was assaulted with flashbacks and she fought to keep herself in the present, and to not drift off. She had to deal with the threat in front of her instead of the threat in her past.

"You killed my father." It wasn't a question once more. Sawyer said nothing, enraging Mbege. "You bitch! You kill my father and have nothing to say for yourself? Not even a pathetic apology?" he was yelling at her at that point.

"I'm not sorry," Sawyer spoke bluntly, and he looked murderous. It was the truth. She wasn't sorry, nor tactful. "Your father deserved to die."

"Why?" he demanded. "Why?" He yelled it at her this time, holding his knife out threateningly. When she didn't say anything, he wiped his forehead with the back of the hand holding the knife, displaying how sharp it is.

"You fucking kill my father and don't have anything to say for it?" Sawyer stood up, following his movements, getting her knife at the ready. She forgot about the gun that was sitting next to her.

"I'm going to fucking kill you. End your life. And I'm going to enjoy it." he jumped towards her and she jumped out of the way. Him being slightly drunk and her being smaller gave her an advantage, and thanks to Miller, she knew how to use that advantage; once he dove again she was able to quickly get out of the way, but he caught her in the arm, laughing when he did it. She was able to dive towards him, slicing his arm. He stopped out of shock momentarily, and, without hesitating, she brought the knife down on his neck. The blood sprayed her in the face. He fell down, and Sawyer stood there as he bled out, feeling an extremely familiar feeling wash over her. She was relieved that he was dead, along with shocked, and fell to her knees next to his now lifeless body. His blood seeped into her knees and hands, and when she wiped her face it transferred there.

She sat there for a second before realizing what she'd done. They were supposed to be forgiven of their crimes, and she'd killed another person. She was a monster, a murderer once more. She stood up and ran into the woods, not stopping until she hit the edge of the familiar lake, panting heavily. She quickly waded into it. She was able to rinse her face quickly of the blood, gagging when some of his blood got into her mouth. Scrubbing her arms, Sawyer growled in frustration when the blood wouldn't come off, but also when the saltwater got into the cut in her arm. She hadn't realized that she'd gotten it in the moment, but she now noticed that it was bleeding a lot, and was actually quite deep. She hissed at the pain of it, but continued to rake her fingers down her arms to try to get the blood off of them. Her heart was racing, head spinning and vision blurring at the pure panic she was feeling. Trying to calm herself down, she couldn't. She sunk to her knees on a rock next to the water, raking her hands through her hair and pulling it. She couldn't breathe, air wouldn't enter her lungs, causing the panic to increase and her breathing to get more difficult.

Someone sat down next to her and hesitantly wrapped their arm around her shoulder. She jumped and threw her arm with the knife out, but when she looked up and saw Octavia, she relaxed a bit. Octavia forced her hand to let go of the knife before running her fingers through Sawyer's hair, gently undoing the knots in it for her. She still couldn't breathe.

"Shh, shh, it'll be alright," Octavia muttered, and continued muttering things along the lines of that as Sawyer attempted to get herself under control. "Breathe with me." she tried to, and eventually got it under control. She moved away from Octavia, making sure to put distance between them. She felt the familiar emptiness wash over her.

"I used to get them all of the time," Octavia confessed, and Sawyer couldn't help but wonder why Octavia was telling her this, or where she came from in the first place. Did she follow her? Did she see what she'd done? "I used to have them in the Skybox when they would turn all of the lights off. I have the closest tent to the fire for a reason."

"How long were you in solitary?" she spoke tentatively, knowing that she most likely wouldn't get anything out of her, but tried anyways. Sawyer took a deep breath before holding up 4 fingers, not finding it in her to speak. Octavia growled, instantly becoming the hot headed girl she knew.

"Those fucking bastards." her voice was louder than it was before, causing Sawyer to flinch slightly at the volume. "The fucking _nerve_ of them. You never saw anybody except the guards for four years? Fuck them. They deserve to be buried in that metal tomb up there," Octavia punctuated her statement by pointing up to the general area that the Ark was in. Sawyer nodded in agreement with her. They didn't deserve Earth, to come down here. She looked like she was going to say more before she was cut off.

"Octavia? What are you doing out here?" they heard Bellamy's voice from far away, and Octavia looked down at Sawyer.

"Did they deserve it?" Octavia asked her quietly, realizing that she still had blood underneath her fingernails and that Octavia had obviously seen her attempting to rinse the blood from the skin, she nodded.

"Good. I was with Lincoln when I saw you, don't tell him," she spoke to Sawyer and looked up at her brother. "I was just walking."

"Well, get back to camp," he ordered her and she rolled her eyes. Smiling at Sawyer for a second, she walked past Bellamy, pointedly avoiding touching him before going in the general direction of camp, expertly dodging in and out of trees. She looked like a natural. Bellamy looked down at Sawyer, scanning her. It was the first time in a long time that she felt small under his gaze.

"You gonna tell me who you got into a knife fight with?" he asked her, and she transferred his eyes to him; he was staring at her arm which was still bleeding. After she didn't say anything, he crouched down. "It's always you." He grabbed her arm and tilted it, examining it before reaching into his pack and pulling out cloth, wrapping it around her arm as a makeshift bandage. She flinched when it pulled on her skin as she was tightening it.

"Sorry," Bellamy muttered, making sure that the bandage was on correctly. "Are you planning on telling me why you killed Mbege?" Sawyer suddenly became occupied with her fingernails, and picking the dry blood out from underneath it, her mind scanning the possibilities in her mind. She would need to leave camp, or face the same fate that Murphy had. Or just do it herself. Sawyer noticed that Bellamy was staring at her knees, which she only just realized were still saturated with blood. She hadn't thought of her clothing, just her skin, which was obviously a mistake. She vaguely remembered kneeling next to his body before running. She didn't answer.

"Damnit Sawyer, I can't help you if you don't tell me what happened," he demanded, and she averted eyes from him, the muscles in her body tensing. _Why are you even helping me?_

"Does it fucking matter?" she spoke harshly, her voice cracking. "Save everyone the effort and just kill me." she handed him her discarded knife and he took it, turning it over in his hands a few times before handing it back to her. Sawyer focused on his hands, not wanting to look him in the eyes.

"I'm not killing you, you're not dying. Get that out of your head. Now. Were you protecting yourself?" Sawyer nodded at him slightly, still staring at his hands. "Then I'll take care of it. Clean up, I'll meet you back at camp."

At that, he got up and left towards camp. Sawyer waited for a minute to make sure that he'd actually left, and took off her shirt and jeans. She scrubbed at the blood on her jeans, surprised when it washed off in a few minutes. The same thing happened for her shirt. Without caring that they were wet, she put them on and walked back to camp, shivering as she walked. When Sawyer returned to camp, she saw Bellamy sitting at the campfire. He stood up, gesturing for her to follow him into his tent.

"So, now you're going to tell me what happened," he ordered of her as soon as they got into it. She stared at him blankly, but realized after a moment that he wasn't going to stop staring at her until she responded. He wasn't even blinking. "Why did you have to defend yourself?" he pressed her further, and she sighed. Someone would eventually have to learn what happened, and apparently that someone would have to be Bellamy. She sat down on his bed, and tried to figure out how to phrase it. Bellamy sat down as well, waiting for a response.

"I killed his father," her voice was barely audible, and he rose his eyebrows at her. _Fuck it, may as well tell him all of it._ Sawyer was tired. Maybe having one other person knowing would bring her some sort of peace, and she'd be able to sleep. She stared at the ground. "Along with 3 others, when I was 14." He sat on the information for a minute, trying to figure out how to counter that.

"Why?" She shook her head at him, and he repeated it again, with more force.

"It doesn't matter why."

"That's why you took off your bracelet as soon as we came down here." she nodded. "That's why Kane said that you were never pardoned. Why your parents hate you."

"They would kill me immediately."

"It's always you," he sighed. "Will you tell me why you killed the guards?"

"No," she responded immediately.

"You said last night that they hurt you." he didn't say anything for a minute, and Sawyer knew that he would figure it out eventually. It wasn't that hard to figure out, there were mutterings about it happening occasionally, and she was mentally preparing to have to talk once he said it.

"Fuck, he raped you, didn't he?" she flinched when he said it, closing her eyes. She felt a deep sense of dread fall into her stomach. She couldn't recover from flinching, and he already knew that what he said was correct. His fists and jaw were clenched. "Fuck." they sat in silence, Bellamy running his hand through his hair, obviously trying to think about something to say, but drawing a blank. "Fuck."

"You said four," Bellamy said quietly after a minute, and Sawyer didn't bother to look at him, knowing that he would have a look of pity on his face. She didn't want him to pity her. She didn't say anything, but went to walk away. She was done with this conversation. He'd grabbed her wrist to stop her and she tried to pull it away, but he pulled her closer and wrapped his arms around her, as he'd done before, when he needed comfort. But this was different, he was trying to comfort her. She was sure that her emotions were radiating off of her after her feeling of emptiness broke. Shame. Embarrassment. Resentment. But there was no regret. She stood for a minute, her arms at her sides, not knowing what to do, but knowing that tears were welling up in her eyes, and she needed to leave. She wouldn't let him see her cry. Sawyer Mason didn't cry. She put her hands on her chest and pushed. He stepped back easily, and she avoided meeting his eyes.

"Now you know the big secret that is Sawyer Mason. Congratulations." Sawyer walked away, ignoring him calling her name, and walked towards the gate, trying to stop herself from crying. She could tell that Bellamy was behind her, and she knew that he was going to try to stop her from leaving. It was night; nobody went out at night. Not when they're at war. He followed her until they got far enough away from the few guards falling asleep on duty that he could talk with her comfortably.

"Where do you think you're going?" Bellamy asked, but she kept walking. He grabbed her arm and wouldn't let go, despite her trying to pull it out of his hand. She stopped and looked at him. He looked genuinely concerned for her, which irritated her instantly, the urge to cry leaving.

"I don't belong here. With all of you."

"Of course you do, now let's go back to camp."

"Do you not realize that I just killed someone?" Sawyer asked, and he shrugged, ignoring the gravity of the situation. He couldn't let her leave, not then. Not when he knew that she wouldn't come back.

"Self defense is different, you didn't walk up while he was sleeping and kill him."

"You know damn well they aren't going to see it that way. I was days away from being floated up there. I'm leaving." Bellamy shook his head.

"No, you're fucking not."

"Too bad you can't tell me what I can do." Sawyer deadpanned looking at him, and she saw that Bellamy was struggling to maintain his leadership face. She was struggling to maintain her deadpan. Neither of them could maintain the facades that they were putting up in front of each other. She needed to leave; she was a danger to everyone around her, unstable.

"Why leave?" he asked her quietly. Sawyer shook her head.

"I've killed two people since I've been here. I couldn't save Charlotte. I can't do anything. There's no point in me being here. You're all better off without me being here." _You're better off without me here,_ she thought to herself. Bellamy said something under his breath in response, and before she could reaffirm what he said, he'd taken a deep breath and started talking.

"I don't care. I don't care if you're a danger because we need you here. The camp needs you. So what if you're a killer? We're in a war, and we need that. You've helped make some of the decisions for this camp, you're more valuable than the majority of those clueless fucks asleep in their tents. Come back with me, Sawyer."

"I can't." they looked each other in the eyes, and she could see Bellamy swallow.

"Is it forgiveness you're looking for?" He repeated what she'd said to him after he killed Dax; it felt so long ago. Sawyer thought for a moment, and realized that's exactly what she needed. But not from anyone else. She needed to forgive herself. She nodded.

"Then you're forgiven. I pardon you, I forgive you on behalf of everybody on the Ark and in that camp. You're forgiven, Sawyer." Bellamy reached and grabbed both of her arms. He was close enough that Sawyer had to crane her neck up to look at his face. She was surprised when he moved, but also surprised that the entire time he was talking, a lump had reformed in her throat, and she shook her head.

"No. I can't accept your forgiveness. I need to forgive myself, and I don't know if I can do that."

"Then do that at camp. We wouldn't survive with you. What about Octavia? What about Miller?" She shook her head again, swallowing hard and taking a step back, to where he couldn't told onto her arms anymore. He stayed in the same place. "We need you here."

"No you don't. I can't do that here, Bellamy."

"You can't, or you won't?"

"Does that matter?"

"Yes, it fucking matters. It matters to me. Stay for me, goddamnit." his voice had grown louder, and he spoke harshly, trying to get the point across to her. _Octavia was right,_ she finally admitted to herself. She'd done everything she told herself she wouldn't do, and in the worst way; she'd fallen for Bellamy. She swallowed the lump in her throat hard.

"I can't do anything compared to the majority of these people. I'm useless to them." _I'm useless to you._

"That's really the way you want to go with this? Because you know as well as I do that that's bullshit." Sawyer was waiting for the order to go back to camp, but it didn't come. She couldn't look him in the eyes, knowing that if she did, then she wouldn't be able to stay. "Just stay."

"Why?" She was almost afraid of what he was going to say.

"For my sanity. I wouldn't be able to do shit if you left, knowing you're out there, being half the size of any Grounder you came across," he tried to lighten the mood almost, but the air was still and somber. Sawyer looked him in the eyes when she spoke.

"Then kill me, like you should've done at the lake." he looked appalled at her words, and before he could say anything, someone called out Bellamy's name. The two of them looked to the origin of the voice to see Clarke walking towards them. She ignored the fact that she very obviously interrupted something.

"I need to talk to you," she demanded of Bellamy.

"Talk." the leader Bellamy was up once more, and he tore his gaze away from her. His hardened face she could handle. Emotions, especially his, she couldn't. She knew she'd cave into him in a second, especially since she finally admitted her feelings towards him to herself.

"Finn's set up a meeting with the Grounders. I'm leaving to go talk to them," she explained, and both of them looked at her incredulously.

"Because you think that impaling people on spears is code for "let's be friends"? Have you lost your damn mind?" Bellamy asked,

"I think it might be worth a shot. I mean, we do have to live with these people," she tried convincing Bellamy, but he shook his head.

"They'll probably gut you, string you up as a warning."

"Well, that's why I'm here. I need you to follow us, be our backup." Sawyer was mildly surprised that she was admitting that she didn't trust Spacewalker with something. She was still convinced that they were in love with each other, despite the new girl appearing.

"Does Finn know about this?"

"Finn doesn't need to know. And Bellamy, bring guns." Bellamy hesitated for a second, and then nodded. Having a discussion with the Grounders, however dangerous it may be, was likely the best option that they had at that point. But Sawyer knew that they shouldn't be naive enough to trust them - they'd tried killing multiple of them, and Sawyer had only sort of gotten over Lincoln poisoning her. Clarke turned around and walked back toward camp, and Bellamy looked back down at Sawyer.

"Come with me," it was more of an order than a question, but Sawyer shook her head.

"I told you, I'm leaving."

"Not fucking happening," Bellamy spoke while putting one hand on each of her cheeks. She just stared at him, committing his face to memory. He brought his face close to hers, and Sawyer could feel her pulse speeding up, but not in the typical panicky way. What did cause her to panic was how comfortable she felt with Bellamy. "Just stay," he muttered, and kissed her. Sawyer put her hands on his upper arms, and could feel herself kissing him back. _What the fuck am I doing?_ He pulled away and dropped his hands so he had one on each of her hips, and looked her in the eyes for a minute before talking.

"Come on, we have to go tail the princess." Sawyer sighed and nodded, realizing that there wasn't a way for her to leave at that minute. Kissing Bellamy only made her want to leave more; she'd known since the way that she came down that showing emotion is weakness, and he was making her weak. She vowed to do it after the meeting with the Grounders, telling herself that it was because she was curious about what was going to happen, but really she wasn't completely ready to leave yet. Bellamy went to turn but hesitated, bending down to kiss her once more. Sawyer reciprocated passionately, knowing that it was the second and last time that she would ever be able to do it.

While Bellamy grabbed Jasper, although he was twitchy for her taste, and the new girl - Raven, she wound up finding out -, Sawyer changed into cleaner clothes. Equipped with guns, they trekked through the forest, trying to look for some sort of signal, since the people they were supposed to be tailing left significantly before them. Bellamy was looking at her every few moments, making sure that she was still there, with him. He suddenly stopped, leaning down and picking up a handful of something. Nuts. Octavia had told her to avoid them at all costs.

"At least they're good for something," Bellamy told her, Jasper and Raven walking behind them. Jasper hadn't mastered the art of walking quietly, something that the large gun on his back didn't help with.

"Walk a little louder," Sawyer snapped at him and he looked at her incredulously. Sawyer realized that she'd only talked to him a few times, and each time she was a bitch to him. She couldn't bring it in herself to care; she wasn't there to play nice, and she couldn't let anyone else in.

"Sorry," he muttered, and consciously tried to walk a bit quieter. Sawyer saw Bellamy smirking out of the corner of her eye.

"Sorry about bringing up Clarke earlier," Jasper told Raven a few minutes later. Apparently, he hadn't mastered the art of keeping his mouth shut. She thought that he'd have learned something while they were looking for Octavia, but apparently not. "That was awkward."

"Shut up," was the only thing Raven replied, and Sawyer agreed with her. If she wasn't leaving, maybe her and the girl would've gotten along. Maybe. She was in love with Spacewalker, so probably not. She still couldn't stand the idiotic pacifist. Sometimes, things were necessary in order to survive, and he didn't seem to get that.

"Both of you shut up. Keep your eyes open," Bellamy ordered them, and they picked up their walking pace. It was a quiet walk; Jasper and Raven didn't want to say anything, likely to avoid pissing off Bellamy, Jasper walking quieter to avoid pissing off Sawyer, but also realizing the direness of the situation. Bellamy didn't say anything at all, but occasionally would give Sawyer a look that she couldn't read, not like she could read him often. Sawyer had no idea how she would get away from him; he was watching her like a hawk, making sure she was next to him at every moment.

Eventually, they stopped. It was finally light outside, on the very outskirts of their border. They saw brush a ways away from the bridge, and Bellamy motioned for them to duck underneath it. They could still see them out of their scopes, but just far enough to where they were out of sight unless someone was looking for them. Clarke and Finn stopped on the bridge, meeting up with someone - Octavia. Of course it was Octavia. Lincoln was likely around somewhere.

"What's Octavia doing here?" Jasper asked, and Sawyer rolled her eyes. Bellamy was glaring up at the bridge, watching Octavia run towards the Grounder, Lincoln, as he caught her in his arms. "Oh." It struck Sawyer that Jasper was disappointed, that he most likely had feelings for the old Octavia. That Octavia was long gone, the one who first arrived on the ground. This one was in a relationship with a Grounder, set up secret meetings, helped her clean off blood after Sawyer murdered someone, and didn't trust her brother at all. Sawyer could see that it was hurting Bellamy to see it, but decided not to say, or do, anything about that. He'd have to learn to deal with it like a big kid.

"I guess we know how he got away," Raven smiled as she talked, watching the interaction. She was looking at Bellamy, happy to see that she was getting a rise out of him. He always had a hard time concealing his feelings when they had to do with Octavia. Sawyer glared at Raven, feeling protective of him suddenly. _God damn you, Bellamy._ Raven's eyes widened when she saw the glare, and she was going to say something before Bellamy gestured up to the bridge, running his hand along Sawyer's lower back as he dropped it. That smile of Raven's disappeared quickly when Finn took Clarke's hand. Bellamy brought up his scope when they heard a noise - what was that? She'd never heard it before, and Raven pointed it out. "Horses."

"Jasper and Raven, focus on the people in the background. Sawyer, focus on their leader. I don't like the look of her." she nodded in response to Bellamy, holding her gun at the ready. "Now, we wait." They couldn't hear any of the exchange, but could tell by their facial expressions that the Grounder Princess was pissed.

"Grounder Princess looks pissed," Raven told Bellamy, who didn't take his eyes off of the exchange.

"Our Princess has that effect," he replied back, bringing back up his scope. Sawyer saw Jasper changing the position of the scope out of the corner of her eye, aiming it at trees.

"Oh, no. No. This is bad," Jasper sounded panicked; she knew he shouldn't have come.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Bellamy looked away from the exchange and to Jasper, who looked like he was shaking with the gun in his hands.

"There's Grounders in the trees," he told them, his breathing getting heavier.

"What?" Raven asked, followed by Bellamy's, "where?"

"Are you sure?" Raven clarified, and both her and Bellamy attempted to find the Grounders in the trees, Sawyer's gun still trained on the leader.

"I don't see anything," Bellamy took his scope down, and Jasper was starting to panic more.

"They're gonna shoot." Jasper's voice suddenly got louder into a yell. "Clarke, run! Run!" he ran down and started firing into the trees, and surprisingly hit some Grounders. The Grounder Princess drew something from her wrist, and Sawyer fired three bullets at her, seeing that at least one of them had hit her. The sound of her gun echoed more than the others, and one of the Princess' henchmen fired an arrow at her, narrowly missing.

"Let's go," Sawyer told Bellamy, who nodded and drew back with her, still firing his gun until it clicked. The two of them started running, hearing Raven finally pulling Jasper away from the commotion when his clip was emptied. They met up with Octavia, Finn and Clarke, who ran with them back in the direction of camp. Sawyer fell behind Bellamy due to her short legs, and wound up bringing up the rear with Finn before Sawyer didn't see a tree that'd fallen in her way. Her foot caught underneath it and her body was launched forward with her momentum. She barely caught herself with her hands, and by the time that she got up, she couldn't see anybody. _Fuck you too, Spacewalker._ Pain shot through her ankle as she tried to run, so she had to settle for limping. She could tell it wasn't broken, but definitely sprained. This was it, this was her way out. She stopped, realizing that if she was going to leave, this was her only chance. As she turned to walk away, she realized that she couldn't. She couldn't leave Bellamy, and while it pained her to admit that, she turned to walk back toward camp when she felt pain in her neck, and crumpled to the ground.

At camp, all of the party had halted outside of the gates, panting. They hadn't stopped running since they left the bridge. As soon as they'd caught their breath, Finn started yelling.

"I told you, no guns!" Finn yelled at Clarke.

"I told you we couldn't trust the Grounders. I was right."

"Hey," Bellamy tried to interrupt them, noticing that something wasn't right. Their group was missing someone, _his_ someone.

"Why didn't you tell me what you were up to?" Raven yelled over him at Finn.

"I tried, but you were too busy making bullets for your gun!"

"Hey!" Bellamy yelled this time. "You're lucky she brought that. They came there to kill you, Finn."

"You don't know that. Jasper fired the first shot!"

"You ruined everything," Octavia told Jasper and turned around to walk away, and Bellamy couldn't help but agree with her, but couldn't let that show. He brought Jasper, he gave Jasper the gun, knowing that the kid had a tendency to panic in stressful situations. It was his fault, but he wasn't about to tell Octavia that. Besides, he had bigger things to worry about at that moment, finding Sawyer.

"Where is Sawyer?" Bellamy asked the group, and Octavia halted, turning back around to look at him with wide eyes. Bellamy knew that Octavia had an affinity for Sawyer, and Octavia knew full well about Bellamy's feelings for Sawyer, even before he did. The angry look in her eyes faded into panic as she realized that Sawyer wasn't there.

"I saved you!" Jasper yelled at her and Octavia ignored him, staring at Bellamy.

"If we weren't already at war, we sure as hell are now," Finn sounded pissed off, and Bellamy couldn't give any less fucks about the war than he did at that moment.

"I don't give a fuck about that right now. Right now, I need someone to tell me where the fuck Sawyer is." Bellamy finally got their attention, and everybody turned to look at him.

"What do you mean?" Jasper asked him, and Octavia looked heated again.

"He means that she's gone, idiot. She was with us, and now she's not. Can you at least understand that?" Octavia asked him and he recoiled like she'd hit him. Bellamy shook his head, putting his gun back on his shoulder.

"Where do you think you're going?" Clarke asked Bellamy, grabbing his arm to stop him.

"I'm finding Sawyer. If you have a problem with that, don't come with." he yanked his arm out of her hand, walking into the forest. _She didn't leave. She couldn't have left him._ Octavia was close behind him, and Jasper turned to follow them. Octavia turned to him.

"Can you try not to shoot her when we see her?"


	15. The One with the Doctor

**A/N: I promise I'm working on this! It's been hectic since I posted the last chapter, but I have the majority written out and I'll post it soon. Enjoy, this is where it really starts deviating from the main storyline.**

Sawyer woke with a start, her entire body freezing. She went to grab her makeshift blanket; instead, her hand smacked on the ground, echoing through... wherever she was. When she opened her eyes, the first thing that she noticed was that she was in complete darkness. The second, was that she was sitting on a hard material, she couldn't quite place what it was. It was harder than anything she'd ever been on before; the ground on the Ark was made out of the most lightweight material ever made that could support them. The third thing she noticed was that her entire body was aching. The fourth thing was that her mouth was completely dry. The fifth thing was that she was chained to a wall. She had no idea how long she'd been in… wherever she was. If there were windows, they must've been blocked; she'd never been in a place so dark. Her head dropped down into her hands, suddenly feeling extremely heavy. Not knowing how long she was sitting there, she jumped when she finally heard a loud creak echoing. So I must be in a room, if there's echoing. Would the Grounders have these kinds of rooms? She was suddenly blinded by lights kicking on, the brightness burning her eyes. Electrical lights, the first time she'd seen them outside of the dropship in a long time. Looking around, she saw that she was correct; Sawyer was sitting in some kind of room, except it wasn't really a room. She was back in some sort of jail cell. She almost laughed at the irony. All of the walls were a grey color, and the door was only noticeable because of the cutout in the wall.

It was a lengthy period of time before the door opened. Sawyer took a break from staring at an imperfection in the wall to look at the person, or people, that were coming through the door. It was a woman flanked by two men. One of the men had a tray of food with water on it, and she knew that if her mouth could water, then it would be doing so. It was so dry she could feel her tongue sticking to the roof of it.

"What's your name?" the woman asked. Sawyer stared blankly at her, but refused to look away from her eyes. The woman stared back at her just as intensely, and Sawyer knew that they were engaged in a battle of the wits of some sort. This woman had no idea who she was dealing with; if Sawyer didn't want to talk, nothing that they could do could make her talk. And judging by the looks of them, they wanted to do a lot. After a few minutes of the men next to her, likely guards, shifting around uncomfortably, the woman spoke again. "Fine. Don't tell us. We'll get it out of you." The woman sighed at her noncompliance.

"They always try to be quiet at first. May as well tell you where you are, child. You are in Mount Weather, in quarantine, because we don't know how dangerous you are." Sawyer's expression never changed. The woman looked to each side of her. "Put the food down, and leave. I have it under control." They looked apprehensive, but did what she said, leaving and closing the door behind them. The woman leaned against the wall, crossing her arms.

"My name is Angelina Vie, but you may call me Doctor Vie. I have a daughter named Maya. I was born and raised in Mount Weather, and I study the… subjects that come through. Typically, we have the savages, but ever since you guys came, everything has been different. The savages are more restless. My husband was killed recently because of them. We saw your… ship fall from the sky, and have seen all of you several times. We have been watching you." Then why do you need me to tell you things? Sawyer thought to herself.

"I want to know why you are here. I figured that we would start with something easy, like your name, but since you're obviously not going to easily comply, I suppose we'll have to come to more… drastic measures. I will be back," the Doctor warned her, and tapped on the door. The guards opened it for her and closed it behind her. Sawyer stared at the food and water, and decided that she would drink the water, but avoid the food. She needed the water, but she would protest against their food. She didn't need it. Downing the water quickly, she leaned against the wall.

How did I get here? Sawyer asked, thinking back. They were running from the Grounders, which she assumed were the "savages" that the Doctor mentioned. She tripped, her ankle was purple and green now, and then she felt something in her neck. Then she woke up here. They must've shot her with something to knock her out, and then brought her here. But why her? Why at this time? And what were they going to do to her? Sawyer hugged her legs to her chest and lied her head down on her knees as the lights in the cell shut off, encasing her in darkness once more.


	16. The One with the Separation Anxiety

**! Warning: mildly described torture at the end of this chapter !**

Bellamy paced in his tent, gradually wearing down the soles of his shoes, along with the floor of his tent and his sanity. His tent felt like a jail cell, while the entire camp felt like a prison. Every time he left his prison, he subconsciously would look to his sides, trying to spot the top of her blonde head mixed in with all of the other campers, and every time he was disappointed. He worked them to the ground for the first three days that Sawyer was gone. Bellamy didn't sleep, and it took until Octavia yelled at him until he realized that he wasn't letting everyone else sleep either. Clarke was the first to notice under his eyes turning more purple, quickly followed by others. He was exhausted, physically and mentally, but there was nothing anyone could do. So he sucked it up.

Every day was like another play that he put on, himself he lead actor. He went through all of the motions the way that he was supposed to; he said his lines, made the facial expressions, and walked the way everyone expected him to. But he couldn't get over the fact that she was gone. Taken.

No, he told himself. She wasn't taken. She left.  
Sawyer left when things got hard. He knew that, it was the pattern she showed from the very beginning. When situations were difficult, she left. When they produced some kind of emotion, she left. Atom was a perfect example. He had to go back to the camp, by himself, to tell the campers that Atom was dead. Clarke was there, but it was different. Clarke didn't experience Atom begging for Bellamy to kill him, she didn't hear Atom taking his last breath, but Sawyer did. The girl he took to bed that night didn't hear it either, but comfort wasn't what he wanted from her. After Charlotte killed herself, Sawyer mentally left. He tried to piss her off to bring her back, but that didn't even work. He understood the pain she was going through, that she was trying to hide beyond the walls she'd constructed for years. Bellamy imagined that she saw herself in the girl as he saw Octavia in her, and couldn't abandon her; she wanted to save Charlotte the way she couldn't be saved. Bellamy couldn't stop thinking about what she finally told him; what those men did to her. His nails dug into his palms, his knuckles turning white from the force. There were almost permanent half moon indents in his palms from this; it was the only thing he could do about his anger revolving around Sawyer.

Bellamy was tired of the others seeing him as weak; he let them believe for so long that Octavia was his only weakness, and no one would dare touch Octavia. But Sawyer was different. The first few days, he had to do was hear her name leave the mouth of a camper in the wrong tone before he grabbed them by the collar. Fear of weakness was the reason he had to suck it up and start pretending. He was their leader, and lead he needed to do.

He needed to get over her, he realized that. Octavia was he first person to tell him so:

 _"Bell?" Bellamy heard Octavia's voice ring out, and was surprised when he heard her. She hadn't called him Bell since before they'd met the Grounder, and now that he knew she was dating him, there was thick tension between the two of them._

 _"Come in," he called out, stopping pacing to look at the doorway, crossing his arms. She walked in apprehensively, giving Bellamy a look that said he wouldn't like what she had to say._

 _"Lincoln says they don't have her," she spoke quickly and with a faux confidence. Octavia knew that, at this time, she needed to act like the older sibling. It was the role Bellamy needed her to play._

 _"Oh really?" Bellamy spoke sarcastically, and Octavia's expression instantly turned annoyed. "We're going to believe that they don't have her just because the Grounder said so?"_

 _"Lincoln wouldn't lie to me," Octavia's voice matched her expression, a mixture of annoyed and exhausted, like it was a conversation they'd that a hundred times, but kept revisiting. "Anyway. Bell, you're not going to like this-"_

 _"Then don't say it," Bellamy interrupted, running his hand through his hair. Octavia continued like he never spoke in the first place._

 _"You need to get over her. She left us, she left you." Bellamy stood completely still, and Octavia could see his arms crossed with knuckles turning white from how hard his fists were clenched._

 _"No," was all he said. Octavia shook her head and left.  
_  
Bellamy would never admit to Octavia that she was exactly right in that moment. It was difficult for him to come to the conclusion on his own, but he tried to remind himself of it when he was staring at the top of his tent, a girl lying next to him, with a pool of guilt swirling in his stomach. As much as it pained him to admit, Sawyer was gone, and by the looks of it, she wasn't coming back. He needed to get over her.

 _Meanwhile, in Mount Weather...  
_  
"Just say your name, and it will all stop," the Doctor reassured Sawyer, and she resisted everything in her body screaming at her to just say it and shook her head. She still wouldn't say anything. Sawyer was lying stomach down on a freezing metal table, thick cuffs connected to chains encased her arms and legs dug into her limbs without her even moving. A guard was standing over her on the side she couldn't see, holding an unknown to her technology that hurt. Her eyes were squeezed shut as the guard leaned down again, pressing the thing to her back. She screamed out in pain - she barely tried to hold the screams in anymore - the smell of burning flesh permeating the air as every muscle in her body contracted. Her entire body was shaking from the pain, panting to try to get air back into her lungs. She'd lost count of how many times they'd burnt her today; it was the third day straight that they were burning her.

The first day, Sawyer had no idea of what would happen to her after waking up in the medical rooms. She didn't know how long she'd been in the concrete room, but her stomach felt like it had resorted to eating itself due to the lack of food. One of the guards came brandishing a needle, a sickly grin on his face, causing panic to rise in Sawyer's chest.

"Time to sleep," the guard told her, the grin never leaving his ugly, pointed face. She tried to jerk her arm out of his hand when he grabbed it to inject her, but he just held on tighter; she was already smaller than him significantly, the starvation making her even weaker in comparison. The tranquilizer spread through her veins, and she was out in seconds.

When she woke up, she was in a room that looked too clean, like a hospital room that was just built and had never been touched. She realized that she was tied to a freezing table, without a shirt on, and tried to jerk out of the chains that instantly dug ruts in her every time she moved.

"All you have to do is tell us your name," she heard the Doctor say, and Sawyer's eyes darted to her; she hadn't realized the Doctor was standing there, but irritation instantly rose when she saw the woman, standing in a lab coat with a clipboard. Sawyer doubted that there was anything on the clipboard, deciding that the Doctor was the type to carry around an empty clipboard for looks. Sawyer started to panic, trying to get out of the cuffs more, but all she could feel is the hard metal against her bony wrists. "I can see we're going to do this the hard way." The Doctor nodded at someone, and suddenly one of the most intense pains she'd ever felt flooded through her body. She cried out in pain, seeing white. Her entire body tensed, and she could smell her own burning flesh in the air. When they lifted the thing off, Sawyer breathed a sigh of relief. What the fuck kind of place is this? She asked herself, and forced herself to open her eyes to look at the woman.

"Your name?" Sawyer stared at her blankly, more resolved than ever to not say anything.

"I see. Again."

Sawyer had no idea how many days it'd been. It could have not been an entire day; she hadn't seen anything that signified days passing. She counted "days" by how many times they took her to the medical room, and when she wasn't in the concrete room, she was on her stomach tied to a table in the medical room that was slowly driving her insane. Occasionally she'd hear a noise when she was alone in the concrete room, but she knew that nothing else was in the room with her. She'd see something out of the corner of her eye, but when she looked, it wasn't there. It was worse when the lights shut off; she kept hearing people talk, people call her name. When she closed her eyes, she could swear that she saw movement. After the second "day," whenever she started to fall asleep, a loud "beep" rang through the room, jolting her awake. They forced her to lie there, in pain and without her senses, and without sleeping. She didn't know how long she was actually in the complete dark.

On the fifth day, they didn't burn her anymore.

"I can see the old method isn't working, so we've decided to try something else," the Doctor told her, and Sawyer just stared blankly. She saw something out of the corner of her eye - a person - but when she went to look, nobody was there, again. The Doctor didn't miss her movement. "You know what I want from you." She didn't say anything, but closed her eyes tightly, trying to prepare her body for whatever was about to happen, her muscles already tensed. There was a sharp pain on her back, and it was slowly dragging across. They were cutting her. She ground her teeth, trying not to give the Doctor the satisfaction. This time, the Doctor only waited for her in silence, only for Sawyer to say nothing, before she said "again". This time, Sawyer could feel that it was deeper, and Sawyer cried out in pain. She couldn't keep count of how many times it had happened, but she may have fainted at one point.

"Why do you protect them? They let you get taken, didn't they? They let you fall behind, they are why you're here with us right now. If they had been paying more attention, if they cared more, we would not be hurting you, because you would still be with them. Isn't that right? It's their fault." Sawyer ground her teeth, trying to ignore the words coming out of the Doctor's mouth. The words were echoing in her head. _It's their fault. It's their fault. It's their fault.  
_  
"Finish up, we're done for today," the Doctor told the guard, and something connected unexpectedly with her back that caused her to let out a scream. She felt herself being burned once more, on the places where she'd just been cut. Tears leaked out of her eyes as they stopped the bleeding of every cut that they'd just done. She knew that she passed out at several points, only to be woken back up by more pain.

The cutting and cauterizing only happened two days, but they decided that physical pain, sleep deprivation - although they let her sleep for a bit after she got back from the sessions this time - and sensory deprivation weren't enough. The Doctor came into her room the next day, with a disgusting smile on her face. Sawyer was immediately taken aback, and dreaded whatever she was going to say. She was tired. She didn't know how much longer she could not say anything, how much more pain her body could handle. The food from all the other days were lined up across the wall, and she counted 15 trays. 15.

"Sawyer." Sawyer rose an eyebrow at her, wondering how the fuck she knew her name. "Your... friend isn't as strong as you are. What's his name… Bellamy? Yes, he couldn't handle as much as you could. It was pathetic, really." Her stomach dropped, and she felt like vomiting. They got Bellamy. Any dash of hope that she had for being saved immediately dissipated. "And it was all because you didn't say anything. How satisfying is that, knowing that you got your leader killed?" the Doctor kept talking, and Sawyer couldn't handle it. Her body lurched forward and she dry heaved violently. The Doctor smirked at this before clearing her face once more, returning it to the sinister look that it'd had before.

"Ah, yes, but he's more than your leader, isn't he?" the Doctor asked her, but she knew that it wasn't a question. She knew somehow, about her feelings for Bellamy. And she got him killed. _It's their fault._ The Doctor's words from the previous day came back to echo in her head. "Of course, once he said that, we didn't have a reason for him. He told us everything that we needed to know. The other leader too, the blonde one? And the pretty brunette? All of them, actually. We burned your little camp to the ground." The Doctor came closer to her and crouched down so that she was level with Sawer.

"How does it feel knowing that you're the sole reason that all of them died?" Sawyer lunged for her but the chain caught, yanking her back to the ground instead, calling her to cry out in pain as her bones and fresh wounds collided with the cement. The Doctor laughed, and something in the corner of the room caught her eye. She turned her eyes again and saw Bellamy standing there.

He's not real, Sawyer told herself, but... was he? He was just standing there, staring at her. She couldn't look away from him. But there isn't a way he could be real, the Doctor said that he was dead. But she wanted him to be real. She wanted him to be real desperately. Sawyer registered tears streaming down her face, and she sobbed. The Doctor walked out of the room, and as she walked out of the room, she heard her say "we finally did it."

All of a sudden, Octavia was standing next to Bellamy. Both of their faces were completely blank, before they spoke at the same time.

"It's your fault, Sawyer," they spoke in unison. "You're the reason that we're dead. All because you couldn't tell them your name? That's pathetic. You're pathetic." The campers were popping up around the room, and soon she was surrounded by everyone in the camp, speaking at the same time. She curled into the fetal position, her head in her hands with her eyes closed but they imprinted themselves on her eyelids, and she couldn't stop the chanting. "You killed us. You killed us."

"You killed us."

Sawyer could not stop screaming.


	17. The One with the Dream?

**A/N I know this is a cop out chapter and a filler, but I needed to get it out. I had a chapter sitting on my computer for a year and a half that was going to be chapter 17, but I just completely remade the entire section of the story. I hope you guys enjoy this bit, and I'll be back soon.**

Jordan headed out to his guard post to take over for Daniel. He rubbed his eyes, trying to get rid of the sleepiness. His ribs were sore from Daniel kicking him, getting him to wake up for guard duty. He was grumbling to himself and started to walk the perimeter of the camp. Halfway through, he almost kicked something, going to sidestep until he looked closer. Not something, some _one_. There was a body lying at his feet.

"Fuck," Jordan kneeled to look, trying to figure out if it was one of them or not, and if it was breathing. It was obviously a female, because her hair was long and her body was small. He had to put his fingers on her neck to see if she was even alive, and he found a very slow heartbeat. So she was alive, just unconscious. He moved her hair out of her face, and swore again. It was the girl that they'd been looking for, the one that was always seen with either Bellamy or Miller. Most of the camp thought she was fucking one of them, or both. Everybody had their theories. Jordan personally went with she was fucking Bellamy, because most girls went with him over Miller. Simple fact. _Back to the task at hand._ He also knew that she hated being touched, but he didn't have any other choice. He picked her up, and she stayed unconscious as he carried her, thankfully. He couldn't help but notice that she weighed practically nothing. She was a small girl, but she felt like she was just bones.

"Get Bellamy. It's her," Jordan told the first person he saw when he got into camp, a girl named Monroe. He liked her because she wasn't annoying, and didn't ask questions. Monroe nodded, her eyes wide, and ran off towards Bellamy's tent. Jordan carried her straight to the dropship, where he assumed they'd want her to be. He wasn't even at the dropship when Bellamy ran over to him.

"Give me her," Bellamy ordered needlessly; Jordan was already handing her over. Bellamy took her easily. "Get back to your post." Jordan nodded and left, leaving Bellamy with the girl. Bellamy hurried into the dropship, putting her down on one of the makeshift beds in there. He brushed her hair out of her face, to make sure Monroe wasn't lying.

"You're alive," he muttered, looking at her, taking in her appearance. He felt like he could breathe, now that he was actually looking at her, not relying on false hope. He sat next to her, his back against the wall as she slept. Bellamy had no idea what to say to her when she woke up. _Welcome back_ sounded too much like something the princess would say. _Happy you're alive_ sounded too morbid. Maybe morbid was right. She was already skin and bones, and likely hadn't eaten the entire time she was gone. She'd been gone for only 8 days.

"Bellamy?" Clarke walked into the dropship, interrupting his train of thought. "Is that Sawyer?" Clarke asked, rushing over to her. She looked her over quickly, wanting to examine her further.

"Is she asleep?" Clarke asked him and he shrugged. Clarke huffed, and checked her pulse. "It's too slow. She might've been given a sedative."

"What can I do?" Bellamy asked her, his voice sounding rough. He hated the way that it sounded; weak, fragile. Clarke pretended not to notice, but he cleared his throat and moved on.

"Wait for her to wake up," Clarke told him, and he didn't look pleased with her response, but looked back to Sawyer. They say in silence for a minute before the Princess opened her mouth again. "You love her, don't you?"

"Get out, Princess," Bellamy told her and she smiled to herself before getting up and walking out.

It was a few hours before she stirred. Her breathing and heartbeat had both picked up, and Bellamy was still watching her. Octavia had been going in and out of the dropship, and Bellamy knew that she was staying away mostly because of him. To give him space with her. Miller came in once, but Bellamy gave him such a harsh glare that he didn't think of coming back. She woke up with a start, jolting up into a sitting position. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and her eyes felt like they were glued shut. Bellamy could see that she was shaking, and wanted to reach out to touch her, but decided against it.

"Sawyer?" he said quietly, and he saw all of her muscles tense. Her breath stopped for a moment, and she forced herself to start breathing once more.

 _\- Sawyer -_

 _The hallucinations are back. Of course they are. They're all dead._ Sawyer knew that if she opened her eyes, she would see Bellamy. And while that was an attractive sounding proposition, it caused physical pain in her heart. She was surprised at how much she could feel, considering her brain was still foggy from the sedative they'd given her. She rubbed her eyes, and tried to breathe. It was then that she noticed the distinctive smell of fresh air, or the lack of hospital smell. Her heart leapt, but she knew that she couldn't get her hopes up. She was probably dreaming. But since when did she have pleasant dreams? Sawyer forced her eyes open, and didn't see the inside of her prison for the first time in… she had no idea how long.

If it was a dream, or a hallucination, it was one hell of one. The details of the inside of the dropship were perfect, and as she turned to look at Bellamy, he even flinched appropriately. Sawyer wasn't sure exactly what she looked like, but if it was anything how she felt, it was complete hell. When her eyes opened, Bellamy saw how the past 8 days had truly affected her in her eyes. Eyes are the window to the soul, and hers were screaming that they were wounded. They only contained a mild pain, buried underneath the walls that Sawyer put up constantly. The walls that Bellamy had hoped had been knocked down before she disappeared.

"Sawyer?" the two of them turned quickly toward the doorway, Sawyer flinching as the movement strained the wounds on her body. She saw Octavia standing there, the sight of her tugging at her heartstrings. _Is this actually real?_ "You're awake!" Sawyer nodded and Octavia ran up closer, and almost threw her arms around Sawyer before thinking twice. "How long has she been awake without you telling us?" Octavia asked Bellamy and he shrugged.

"Only a few minutes," his voice sounded rough, and it reminded Sawyer of the night that she was taken. _How long ago was that now?_ She didn't bother asking, because her dreams - she'd decided that it was a dream, since hallucinations couldn't be this elaborate - would only how as much as she did. Unfortunately, her dream self still had the same amount of wounds that her real self had. Her body was shooting with pain, and she wished she were asleep once more.

"It's been 8 days, Bellamy, you weren't the only person that missed her," Octavia snapped, and sat down on the bed next to Sawyer. _Well that answers my question._ "Where have you been?" Octavia asked Sawyer, and she swallowed roughly. It'd been a long while since she'd spoken, and Octavia handed her water that she drank eagerly.

"Mount Weather," Sawyer was eventually able to say. _If it's a dream, the least I can do is make the most of it._ Bellamy and Octavia looked shocked, from what she could tell. She was too.

"So you _were_ taken?" Bellamy asked at the same time Octavia said "I _told you_ Lincoln didn't have her." Bellamy's face darkened at the mention of the Grounder, and Sawyer shrugged. She saw guilt on Bellamy's face, and was curious about that. Why would her dream make Bellamy guilty? What would he have to be guilty about? Bellamy ignored Octavia who was staring pointedly at him.

"Did you think I left?" Sawyer asked quietly, and both of them looked down in what looked like shame. _Great_ , _people can't believe in me even in my dreams._ She knew that it was ridiculous that something like that could offend her, considering that was the original reason why she fell behind. That, and that she was hurt, of course. But as far as they knew, she was planning on staying. Sawyer sighed and crossed her legs. "Great, one more way my subconscious can torture me." Both Bellamy and Octavia looked at her strangely, and Sawyer rolled her eyes.

"What do you mean, 'subconscious'?" Bellamy asked, and Sawyer shrugged, not wanting to explain to her dreams why it's a dream. It was pointless, and she'd already wasted more of her breath than usual. "Sawyer." Bellamy said her name to gain her attention, and Sawyer looked back up to him.

"It's obvious. You're both dead, I'm dreaming, and I'm going to wake up to yet another day of being branded like an animal," Sawyer spoke monotonously, and Octavia's eyes widened at her mentioning of being branded. Bellamy looked away.

"You're not dreaming. You're actually back at the camp, Sawyer," Octavia tried to convince her, and Sawyer scoffed.

"It's impossible. You're dead, this camp is gone, and it's my fault," Sawyer slowly got quieter, until she was muttering. "I killed you."

"Hey! You're awake!" Clarke walked in, and Sawyer's eyes snapped to her.

"Get out," Bellamy spoke instantly, wishing to have more time to understand what Sawyer was trying to communicate. What did she mean, that she killed them? He had to know.

"No." Clarke came and stood at the foot of the bed. "I'm not leaving. What's going on?"

"Sawyer thinks it's a dream and that she killed all of us. Oh, and she was in Mount Weather where she was apparently tortured." Octavia spoke quickly, and when they looked at her, she shrugged. "Just catching her up."

"Okay…" Clarke said slowly, and looked to Sawyer. "Do you have any wounds that need to be looked at?"

"Probably," was Sawyer's response. She began to do a mental check-up of herself, and thought. Everything was so… _Normal._ If it was real, would she really be this calm? Or would it give her some sort of permanent damage? Her brain began flashing, everything from when she was gone playing before her mind. She wanted to throw up.

"Sawyer?... Sawyer!" She jumped at the sound of someone calling her name - Octavia? She opened her eyes that she didn't realize she'd closed. "You okay?"

"I'm fairly certain that she's not okay, so if you two could leave so I could examine her, that would be great," Clarke spoke up, and Octavia wrinkled her nose before squeezing Sawyer's hand and leaving. "Bellamy, you too."

"I'm not leaving," was Bellamy's response. It was first he'd spoken in minutes; he'd been quietly observing Sawyer. She was different, that was for sure. She'd been changed, and it was too soon to know how.

"Bellamy, go." He reluctantly stood up.

"I'll be just outside, okay?" Sawyer nodded at Bellamy, and watched him as he left. _This has to be real. There's just no way that something like this can exist and not be real… which also means that everything they told me wasn't true. They probably didn't burn the camp down, either._ Clarke approached Sawyer, and she knew that she had to show her the wounds now, taking a deep breath. She turned her back to Clarke and lifted her shirt, showing her the majority of her back. To her credit, Clarke didn't make a noise, and if it looked anything like it felt, it was quite a feat.

"They're deep, but they're mostly okay. It looks like they… sealed them somehow-"

"They cauterized them, if that's what you mean." Sawyer knew that Clarke's face was likely green. She pulled her shirt down, knowing that there was no further need for Clarke to look at her back. And she also knew that she desperately needed some sort of bath.

"Other than being deep, just keep an eye on them. But they look fine." Clarke looked relieved that _something_ was going to be fine around the camp.

Before she could stop herself, Sawyer began speaking. "Did anything happen to the camp?"

"What?" Clarke asked dumbly.

"While I was gone," she clarified. Clarke shook her head, and Sawyer had the sudden overwhelming realization that everything she'd been told over the last apparently 8 days - it felt like a _lifetime_ \- that she was gone was a lie. She blacked out.


End file.
